Calgary IT company since 2000
Most IT companies in Calgary either keep your systems running or write your software. CoreData does both, from one team, which is why our clients stop coordinating between two vendors who blame each other.
Choosing a provider
Most providers in this market look similar on a website. These are the questions that actually separate them.
Ask whether support is delivered by the company you are signing with, or subcontracted to an overseas help desk. Ask for the escalation path in writing. A provider that cannot describe what happens after hours has not thought about it.
Many providers carry vendor quotas that shape their recommendations. Ask why a specific platform is being proposed and what the alternatives were. The answer should reference your requirement, not a partner tier.
Not every business wants to replace its internal hire. Co-managed arrangements, where a provider handles monitoring, security, and after-hours while your person keeps the relationships and project work, are common, and should be offered without friction.
This is where most IT companies stop and hand you a list of products. If your operation depends on a process no vendor sells software for, a provider that cannot build will keep recommending workarounds indefinitely.
Know what you are buying
"IT company" covers five different businesses. Knowing which one you are talking to explains most of the difference in quotes, and most of the disappointment afterwards.
Take ongoing responsibility for your environment under a recurring agreement: monitoring, patching, security, help desk, backup. The right model for most businesses without a full internal IT department. This is CoreData's Assurance+ managed IT practice.
Charge by the incident or the hour when something is already broken. Cheap until the outage, expensive during it, and nobody is accountable for prevention. Reasonable only for very small operations with little to lose from downtime.
Deliver defined projects: migrations, upgrades, assessments, new sites. Strong consultants also document and hand over cleanly. CoreData's IT consultants in Calgary does this work, and can hand the result to our own support desk afterwards.
Build applications and integrations but will not run your network or answer a help desk call. When your problem is a process no product covers, this is who you need. CoreData's software and AI practice covers this side.
Primarily sell licences and hardware, with services attached to move product. Nothing wrong with buying licences, but treat a reseller's architecture advice the way you would treat a car dealer's opinion on which car you need.
An MSP, a consulting practice, and a software company operating as one Calgary team since 2000. The combination matters on the day your "IT problem" turns out to be a workflow problem, because we can fix either without referring you elsewhere.
Due diligence
Beyond the four questions above, these are the concrete things to ask every shortlisted provider for. All of them are reasonable requests, and how a company reacts to being asked is itself useful information.
What makes CoreData different
CoreData has operated as both an IT services provider and a software company since 2000. That combination is unusual in Calgary, and it changes what we can do when the obvious answer is not good enough.
When a client problem turns out to be a manual process rather than a server, we are not obliged to pretend otherwise.
Where to start
Proactive monitoring, help desk, endpoint protection, and fully outsourced or co-managed support.
Managed IT in Calgary →Hand the whole function over, or split it with the person you already employ.
IT outsourcing in Calgary →A staffed desk your people can actually reach, with response targets in writing.
Help desk in Calgary →Firewalls, switching, wireless, VPN, and multi-site connectivity kept monitored and current.
Network support in Calgary →Endpoint and network security, backup, disaster recovery planning, and recovery testing.
Cybersecurity →Software built around the process you actually run, plus automation and system integration.
Software & AI →Reading the signals
Businesses rarely leave an IT provider over one incident. They leave over a pattern. These are the patterns we hear most often from companies that switch to us.
Issues get acknowledged, then nothing, until someone chases. Chasing your provider is unpaid project management.
Every review meeting ends in a quote. Recommendations track what the provider resells, not what broke.
Hardware fails at end of life instead of being replaced before it. Budgets get surprised by things a calendar could have predicted.
MFA half-deployed, backups unverified, offboarding informal. Fine until the insurance questionnaire, or the incident.
One technician knows your environment. When they are away, response quality collapses. When they leave, you start over.
The provider that fit at 10 staff is drowning at 40. Multi-site, compliance, and after-hours needs have outrun their bench.
Switching providers
Changing IT companies feels risky, which is why so many businesses stay too long with a provider they have outgrown. Done properly, the transition is a checklist, not a leap. CoreData's onboarding runs in four steps.
Inventory the environment, collect or reset credentials, verify backups actually restore, and document what exists today, including the things the previous provider never wrote down.
Close the urgent gaps first: unsupported systems, missing MFA, unpatched machines, backup failures. This is where the end-of-life dates get checked against your actual fleet.
Monitoring on everything, endpoint protection deployed, help desk introduced to staff, response paths agreed in writing.
A rolling technology plan with replacement timelines and budgets, reviewed with you on a schedule, so decisions stop being emergencies.
Your current provider does not need to cooperate enthusiastically for this to work. It goes smoother when they do, and the exit terms you negotiated up front decide how smooth.
Budgeting
Recurring services are typically priced per user, per device, or a blend, with the number driven by user count, servers, sites, coverage hours, and compliance obligations. Projects are either fixed-scope or hourly. Two patterns deserve caution: hourly-only support, which rewards slow work, and long contracts signed before the provider has seen your environment.
CoreData quotes managed services after an assessment rather than from a rate card, prices projects as fixed scopes once designed, and keeps hardware and licensing as separate transparent lines. The first conversation costs nothing: (403) 450-3438.
Who we serve
CoreData's client base leans toward organizations where technology failures have physical or regulatory consequences: oil and gas operators with well-site and field systems, industrial firms where plant and office IT must behave as one environment, and healthcare providers with privacy and audit obligations. Professional services firms, from engineering to accounting, hire us for the same underlying reason: they need a provider that plans around their operations rather than around its own ticket queue. Recent work is documented with real numbers in our case studies.
Common questions
CoreData provides two connected lines of work: managed IT, cybersecurity, and IT consulting for business technology; and custom software, system integration, and AI automation for business processes. Most Calgary IT companies do one or the other.
Since 2000. CoreData Incorporated is headquartered at 625 14 St NW in Calgary, and has supported Western Canadian businesses for more than two decades.
Both. Engagements range from co-managed support alongside a single internal IT hire, to fully outsourced IT for companies with no technical staff at all.
Independent. Platforms are chosen to fit the requirement rather than a resale agreement, and the reasoning behind each recommendation is documented so you can challenge it.
CoreData is Calgary-based and focused on Calgary and the surrounding area. Industrial and field work is carried out at client sites across Alberta.
Recurring support is usually priced per user or per device, driven by headcount, servers, sites, coverage hours, and compliance needs. CoreData quotes after an assessment rather than from a rate card, so the number reflects your environment, not an average.
An MSP is one kind of IT company: one that takes ongoing responsibility for your environment under a recurring agreement. Other IT companies do break-fix work, projects only, software only, or resale. CoreData operates as an MSP, a consulting practice, and a software company from one team.
Access and documentation transfer first, monitoring and backup verification second, and the old provider is released only once the new one is demonstrably in control. Done in that order, staff mostly notice the help desk answering faster.
Response targets are set by severity and written into the agreement. An outage and a printer question are different commitments, and each severity level has a defined escalation path.
Talk with our team
Ask us the four questions above. We will answer them directly, and tell you if another provider is the better fit.