Sometimes, it pays to take stock of where you came from, where you are, and where you’re going. Over the past several months, the CloudFirst team has been doing a lot of self-reflection as we’ve gone through a comprehensive rebrand process.

What we realized is that, from the very beginning, the seed of our business—our mission to help companies modernize their IT by providing them with infrastructure and managed services—has stayed the same.

While the shape that it’s taken has changed with the seasons as our team has grown and technology has evolved, through it all we’ve maintained that same sense of purpose and done everything in our power to meet our customers' needs.

Whether you’ve been with us for decades or have just recently been introduced to CloudFirst, please join us on this journey as we share where we came from, where we are now, and what’s coming next.

CloudFirst’s Origin Story

It was the end of 1989. IBM had released the AS/400 family of midrange computers just a year prior, enabling more businesses to adopt IT than the previous generation of mainframes had made possible. The IT boom was on.

In New York City, a young man named Hal Schwartz picked up a trade publication and read that IBM, for the first time, was preparing to recruit business partners to sell their new system. He soon became one of the first-ever IBM partners, and he began working with a leasing company to sell their used equipment.

Every morning, he’d arrive at the office and get a printout from a Telex machine about companies that wanted to buy and sell IBM hardware. Surprised by how much demand there was for equipment, he hustled around the city, started making deals, and laid the foundation for his new company. Today, Hal is president of CloudFirst.

A few years later, in 1994, Hal met Chuck Paolillo and Thomas Kempster, who ran their own small business providing technical services for AS/400 shops. They established a great working relationship, referred clients to each other, and soon realized they were stronger together.

They came together to form ABC Services, and the seed was planted: their new company brought together hardware and infrastructure with software and services to provide real business solutions for IBM users. Now Chuck and Tom are CloudFirst’s Chief Technology Officer and Chief Experience Officer, respectively.

CloudFirst Expands, Grows, and Evolves Into the 21st Century

Over the following two decades, the company grew slowly but surely. Like any business, there were ups and downs, but they kept moving forward: one sale, one installation, one service offering at a time.

They built up a reputation in the NYC metro area as the go-to guys for all things IBM Power Systems.

Then, in 2014, they decided to make the jump to the cloud. They saw what was happening with AWS and Azure, recognized that nobody was doing anything similar for IBM i, and realized it was up to them to make it happen. After joining forces with Chuck Piluso of Data Storage Corporation (DTST), they launched a joint venture that became the world’s first full-service cloud offering for IBM Power Systems.

In 2017, they merged CloudFirst with DTST to streamline their operations. Hal and the team spent the next three years in the trenches building out the business, serving their customers, and setting the stage for the exponential growth that was to come.

That growth came in 2021 when CloudFirst acquired Flagship Solutions. Not only did this bring an even stronger services portfolio and a great talent pool, but it also enabled an uplist on the NASDAQ. This brought an influx of capital, which we leveraged to continue growing the business and evangelizing about the cloud.

Around this time, we realized that when we mentioned cloud to IBM i users, most people didn’t understand its value. They weren’t on Windows, they didn’t care about AWS, and they had been managing their on-prem servers for decades. It wasn’t broken, so why fix it?

But, over time, as they’ve heard stories from people in other organizations at user groups like COMMON and learned about the benefits of adopting cloud, there’s been a shift. People have started actively seeking out cloud solutions, and we’ve provisioned data center after data center to meet demand.

In the last couple years, we’ve expanded beyond our borders to open data centers in Canada and the UK. After spending the last year building a strong foundation in the European market and signing on partners we can trust, we’re ready to serve customers across the continent.

Our Shared Future: Your CloudFirst Story Is Just Beginning

Now, in 2025, CloudFirst is thriving. We continue to serve our deeply loyal customer base and support the bedrock IBM technologies they rely on, but we’ve also evolved with the times.

We provide a unified cloud solution, enabling our customers to bring together their IBM Power Systems and their Windows and Linux environments into a single cloud. We’ve stayed up to date with the latest tech, like AI and security automation, because that’s what today’s IT teams want and need.

Our new brand is a reflection of that. We’re still the same CloudFirst you know and love, but we also want everyone to understand that we’re not just an IBM i host. Our solution offerings are unique, just like our new look.

CloudFirst will always have your back, supporting the IT infrastructure that works for your business. At the same time, we’re always innovating and moving forward.

“What you need to know is that we have the resources, vendor relationships, and initiative to go after cutting-edge technologies and deliver them to you within a fully managed solution,” says Hal Schwartz.

“Yes, Power Systems are still important, but we can do a lot more. You know us for IBM i, but we can do it all: Windows, Linux, security, AI, and multi-cloud. We’re capable and skilled, and this lets us help our clients modernize and future-proof their IT systems.”

Now, with our pending acquisition by Performive, a cloud and infrastructure services provider backed by Renovous Capital Partners, we’re poised to further accelerate our growth. Our leadership team will remain in place, and we’ll continue to provide the renowned support and account management that we’re known for. This strategic growth transaction will further enable us to serve our customers’ evolving IT needs.

The future is bright for CloudFirst, our partners, and our customers. Call it a beautiful, partly cloudy sky. We promise never to stop leading the way, empowering businesses to explore new horizons, and transforming legacy IT systems into secure, scalable cloud environments that enable long-term growth and operational resilience.

Join us on the journey. Reach out today for a free consultation and take the first step toward becoming an enterprise without limits.