Xsil was founded in early 2000 by Peter Conlon, one year before he sold his former company, MVT Ltd., to Agilent Technologies for cash consideration in excess of €100 million.

Twenty-three technology companies from the Republic of Ireland and six from Northern Ireland were last night ranked among Europe’s 500 fastest-growing technology companies, with Ireland’s fastest growth company, Xsil, ranked an impressive 8th.

The full list of EMEA’s 500 fastest growing companies was announced during the 2006 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA awards.

Deloitte also released the 2006 Technology Fast 500 EMEA CEO Survey & Ranking - a comprehensive analysis of the business trends and background statistics of the winning companies and a summary of the key concerns and expectations of sector CEOs.

Survey of Fast 500 CEOs reveals that 87 per cent of CEOs are either very confident or extremely confident that they will sustain their growth rates over the next year - the most confident EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa)CEOs have been in the six years since the ranking began.

David O’Flanagan, Partner with Deloitte, Dublin, said: "For an Irish company to feature in the Top Ten is truly a great achievement and is indicative of the innovation and success in the Irish technology industry."

Key trends observed in this year’s ranking were:

• Average five-year revenue growth for all companies is 1,396 per cent, double that of last year;
• Software firms continue to dominate the ranking, providing 44 per cent of all listed firms, followed by communications and networking, with 16 per cent;
• The top ranked company was IT services provider MX Telecom Ltd of the UK, with average five-year revenue growth of 57,939 per cent;

• Proportional to population numbers, technology firms in Norway, Israel and Ireland are most successful in the ranking;
• The UK has the most ranked companies with 91 of the 500, closely followed by France with 84.

Deloitte Technology Fast 500 CEO Survey Overview In addition to compiling the Technology Fast 500 ranking, Deloitte today published a survey of the Fast 500 CEOs in EMEA. Some of the key trends are:

• Confidence in sustaining future growth has reached an all time high in the region, with 87 per cent of CEOs either extremely or very confident that their company will sustain its growth over the next year;
• Personnel concerns dominate: high-quality employees are the key to growth for around a quarter (24 per cent) of CEOs;
• Finding, hiring and retaining qualified employees is the biggest operational challenge for 38 per cent of CEOs.

Details on the winning companies and the Deloitte Technology fast 500 EMEA CEO Survey can be downloaded from www.deloitte.com/fast500emea.