CNT celebrates 20 years at Van Wert store

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

It was December 1997 when Kirk Berryman began Computer Networking & Technology (CNT). The last two decades have seen many changes in technology — and even in how CNT does business.

Berryman first got interested in computers while a marketing and management student at Lima Technical College in the mid-1990s.

“I did an internship at a small computer company in Lima,” Berryman said, noting that his knowledge of computers at the time was pretty much zero. “I didn’t know anything about computers, didn’t know what a hard drive was, didn’t know what a stick of memory was.”

That changed as he not only did sales for the company, but also basically self-taught himself to repair computers, ran cable, and set up small servers.

“I did everything from sales to home installs, to wiring, to server work, just a little bit of everything,” Berryman remembers.

The experience was so rewarding that Berryman decided to go into business for himself after the internship ended.

Things were vastly different from today, though, when he and two technicians set up shop in Van Wert in 1997.

“We started with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1, the original Windows,” Berryman said, noting that CNT sold a lot of desktop computers in those days, versus mostly laptops today.

“People are more mobile today, so we sell more laptops rather than desktops, although many businesses still buy desktops,” he said.

Of course, the ultimate in mobility — cell phones and tablets — are now replacing laptop computers, with sales of laptops decreasing steadily over the past few years.

Although there have been a number of challenges in keeping up with new technology, both in hardware and software, CNT has also had to deal with the advent of Internet retail companies, such as Amazon.

Berryman said the explosion of Internet sales has definitely cut into CNT’s sales of both hardware and software, although, on the positive side, the fact that so many more devices are being sold has created more opportunities for servicing those devices.

Today, CNT not only repairs computers, but also cell phones and other mobile devices, such as tablets. Berryman also added a Celina store, which has been in business for 15 years.

“We pride ourselves on our service,” Berryman said, noting that CNT offers 24-48-hour turnaround on device repair.

He did note, though, that with so many people reliant on the Internet, even that turnaround is not fast enough for some customers.

“We now have a ‘fast food’ society, where everyone expects something to be done instantly, but that’s not always possible,” Berryman said, while noting his technicians do their best to provide the fastest service they can.

CNT has seen technology go from 386 and 486 processors with 20-30 megabytes of hard drive space to today’s ultrafast processors, terabytes of storage, solid state hard drives, and “the cloud”. Broadband wireless has also been a boon for consumers, who have more and more devices in their homes.

Berryman said the computers he sells generally have 4-8 gigabytes of random access memory (RAM), Windows 10, and 120-240GB solid state hard drives (SSDs).

The computers he repairs are, on average, five years old, with either Windows 7 or sometimes even Windows XP as their operating systems. Berryman said he generally replaces those computers’ SATA hard drives with SSDs because they are fast and reliable and have no moving parts.

Unfortunately, computer and network security has become a bigger and bigger issue, with criminal hackers breaching even large corporations’ security systems to steal data.

Berryman said CNT provides security solutions for consumers and small businesses, but added that nothing is 100 percent foolproof, if a hacker is determined to break into a system. The best security is creating complex passwords and two-tier verification, something many people — and some companies — don’t do. Consumers also need to keep their computer security systems updated with the latest information.

Berryman said that, with all the challenges, CNT has done a good job of changing with the times, of keeping up with new technology and processes — enough, maybe, to stay in business for another 20 years?