Cloud communications giant considers Ireland for new post-Brexit HQ
CLOUD communications giant 8x8 is considering shifting its European headquarters from the UK to Ireland after Brexit.
The company — which announced its first Irish partnership this week, with Dublin-based Workair — also said it is considering opening a data centre here.
The $1.7bn firm offers a service known as Same Room, which allows companies to monitor their employees’ activity on chat programmes such as Slack, Skype and Google Hangouts. It also allows companies to monitor the efficiency of their call centres to help improve the service given to customers.
Chairman and chief technology officer of 8x8 Bryan R Martin said continental Europe at large was “ripe” for expansion in the cloud communications sector.
“I think as we get traction in a country we’re happy to invest locally,” he told the Sunday Independent.
“When we started in the UK back in 2013, there were originally 35 people working there. Now there’s more than 200. We do have a plan for Ireland, but it’s not one we’re ready to share right now.”
When asked whether he thought Ireland was a suitable place for its European headquarters after Brexit he said “it certainly could be”, but added that the company still does not now what legal structures it will adopt in Europe after March 29.
He also said Ireland was one of a number of European countries under consideration for a raft of new 8x8 data centres due to open in the coming years. Martin said Ireland’s lobbyists had been in touch with him a number of times to consider opening one here and described them as “extremely aggressive in Silicon Valley”.