Last month it won e-challenge 2000 to be named Best Internet & Wireless Company in Europe, beating over 1,000 companies from 19 countries. The judges' attention was drawn to Norkom's software - Alchemist - which uses sophisticated data mining techniques to help firms understand customers needs, how to retain them and how to extract maximum value from them.

For example a high-street bank could use Alchemist to determine how much its account holders are likely to net the bank, how likely they are to move on and what supplementary financial products they are most likely to buy. Norkom says the reduction in customer churn and customer acquisition costs can be dramatic.

Norkom was set up in March 1998. It employs 210 people in Dublin, London, Ghent and Boston and is forecast to generate annual revenues of ?20m by the end of its third year.

The local business establishment, never keen to miss an opportunity, has already started to climb aboard the bandwagon. Celebrated local tech entrepreneur Denis O'Brien, chairman of Esat Telecom, and Gavin O'Reilly, son of Heinz boss Tony O'Reilly and managing director of Independent Newspapers, recently became non-executive directors and will provide strategic advice.

They also invested as part of a fundraising round that valued Norkom at £66m. Advisers at Lehman Brothers in London are keen to take the company public later this year.

At Norkom's helm is chief executive Paul Kerley, a 36-year-old Dubliner, who has spent the past 18 years working in software and consulting roles. He and four founding members own around 58% of Norkom. He believes that, in five years, Norkom can become the global leader in a field estimated to be worth £4.5bn.

Although committed to his home city and impressed by its transformation over the past few years, he realises that Norkom's location could be a key challenge to growth.

Recruitment and office space are two of the biggest issues. Norkom has already recruited in China and India but Mr Kerley hopes more Irish people can be taken on now that many are coming home from overseas. "Speed to market is everything in this business. We cannot lose velocity, but I'm confident we won't get left behind. The Irish are like salmon. Come spawning time they move back upstream."

Norkom uses three offices to house its 120 Dublin-based staff but it is looking for 60,000sq ft of floor space to bring them all together.

"Space is at a premium and finding the right location is very difficult. Many of our staff are young and don't particularly want to work at a technology park somewhere outside town. It could affect our ability to retain staff if we were forced to move outside Dublin."

Mr Kerley has sympathy with the locals who are not riding the technology boom. "It's causing a lot of upset. Teachers, police and medical staff have lived the past 100 years in parity, working in nice safe jobs. Now they find they can earn four times as much working for a technology company."

However, he believes that the social consensus that has emerged between employers and unions is likely to remain as long as the economy stays buoyant. "Some very enlightened decisions have been made in terms of education, telecoms and infrastructure."

However he cannot see an easy solution to Dublin's road and public transport problem. "There's going to be another 10 years of hell but it will be sorted. The government and EU have invested heavily in things like telecoms and education. So we still have Mediterranean roads, but if that's our problem I'll take it."

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