Most companies have been concerned with weathering the economic storm, but FrontRange Solutions had to worry about lackluster sales six years earlier. Thanks in large part to CEO Michael McCloskey (who came aboard in 2003), the enterprise software company—whose HEAT Help Desk solution is exceedingly popular—has thrived during the recession.

FrontRange ended their fiscal year May 30 with revenue up 6.8% from last year ($138.1 million from $129.3 million), with a total earnings of $23.6 million, up slightly from last year. McCloskey told the San Francisco Business Journal that he plans to take the company public by the end of next year, and has already been CEO or CFO of other companies that went public, like Kana Communications and Genesys Telecom.

However, the uphill climb wasn’t just the benefit of eliminating what McCloskey calls the employees’ “defeatist attitude”—FrontRange has steadily been moving from CRM software to low-cost IT service management software, where they will continue to pursue medium-sized enterprises. The IT sector is highly competitive, but FrontRange is successfully carving its niche.

It will be interesting to see how this repositioning affects FrontRange’s product line. The Business Journal notes that they have a slew of new products to release this year, but does not say whether those products air on the IT side. Given the success of HEAT and some of their other CRM products, it’s unlikely they’ll drop the CRM focus completely, but who’s to say what will happen when IT service management software is in the spotlight.

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