That vast network, in connection with the data centres, allows Last Digital to provide its customers with geographic load balancing, which means that data on a company’s Web site can be served from the Last Digital servers that are closest to the customer accessing the company’s information.

“We know that millions of dollars of business can be earned or lost online depending on whether the customer can navigate the site quickly,” Alper said. “So we put a major emphasis on the quick download times that geographic load balancing provides.”

From its birth in Alper’s dorm room on October 01, 1997, Last Digital’s core market has been small- and medium-sized companies whose owners and managers were more concerned with running their businesses than becoming techno-geeks. These companies, dubbed “late adopters” in marketing demographics, saw the emerging technology of eCommerce as a tool to boost their bottom lines rather than as an end in itself.

These late-adopters became a source of fascination and success for Alper as he perfected ways to give them the cutting edge technology they needed to have a competitive edge in their business while taking the hassle out of understanding the technology and making it work.

“Our motto has always been, ‘we hold their hand every step of the way,” Alper said. “I love the technical stuff, but I know not everyone does. So we take care of all that so our customers can run their company, whether it is a syndicated college radio show or a global conglomerate.”