Like so many Utah high-tech companies, National Microcomputer, 3855 S. 500 West, gets more respect from business outside the state than within.
But that should change soon when the company opens a new 25,000-square-foot building at 5544 Green St., Murray. The $1.4 million building should be ready for occupancy Feb. 15 and ready for sales to the public March 1, said Jafar Mogharrab, NM president, and Jeff Patton, general manager and product manager.Because it is a computer systems manufacturing company, small in relation to the giants in the industry, NM doesn't have much money for advertising, but Mogharrab believes that when the new retail portion of the new operation is open the word will spread about the company.
Mogharrab, who also owns Teletape Video Systems, 7127 S. 400 West, Midvale, an audio-visual equipment company, will merge the two operations. That means the retail store at the new Murray location will sell computer systems and audio-visual equipment including televisions, video cassette recorders, sound systems and security systems.
Teletape will continue to exist, said Mogharrab, and employees will continue to sell to government and corporate clients.
"I would like Utahns to know that we have plenty of good companies with good products," said Mogharrab, a native of Iran who has lived in Utah for 16 years. And he believes that his company produces a good product at competitive prices.
Happiest to get into a new building will be NM's 23 employees, who presently put their computer systems together in cramped quarters with components stacked to the ceiling and salesmen meeting clients in the front office. The expansion will require the company to hire about 20 more people.
Mogharrab and Patton said it is sometimes difficult to hire qualified people for computer systems manufacturing because of the large number of other similar companies in the area.
Mogaharrab said he purchases computer system components including chips, keyboards, cases, disk drives, modems and monitors from various companies. The base units are custom built to meet a customer's needs and NM also provides service for the units.
Even though NM is more well-known outside Utah, the company still counts the University of Utah, Salt Lake County, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, Hercules Aerospace, C.R. England & Sons Trucking and Marriott Corp. Reservation Center as its customers.
For Mogharrab, his success is a typical story of a person who started out with nothing and worked hard to build his business interests.
Mogharrab attended Shiraz University in Iran and graduated in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in English. He came to the United States in 1978 and spent one year at Utah State University, enrolled in electrical engineering. While working as a test engineer for Unisys he enrolled at Weber State University and graduated in 1981 with a degree in electronics.
In 1988, Mogharrab received a master's degree in computer integrated manufacturing from Brigham Young University. He was a design engineer for E-Systems from 1987 to 1990 when he started National Microcomputer.
With his wife, Cindy, Mogharrab rented 1,200 square feet in Midvale. Cindy worked for a computer software company and she did the office work and accounting for the fledgling company. After Jafar sold the units, he assembled them and then delivered them to customers.
It was three months before he hired hisfirst technician to help with the assembly, and in November 1990 he moved the operation to the present location. Jafar was aggressive and got a contract with a computer store to supply computer systems under the store's name. Using person-to-person tactics, Jafar made contacts and added clients.
A Salt Lake native, Patton took some computer science classes at Utah State University but left in 1985 without graduating. He worked for a software company until 1990 and one day Mogharrab tried to sell Patton some of National Microcomputer's products.
Patton wondered how Mo-ghar-rab could be a qualified supplier when he was outselling him by a large margin, but soon Mogharrab convinced Patton there was opportunity in working for a growing company.
In spite of operating in cramped quarters and doing no advertising, National Microcomputer products and service have received excellent reviews from several national computer magazines.
A year ago, Info World wrote, "National Microcoputer's NMC Pro-System 466 tied for the top spot with Acer America Corp.'s Acros 486 DX2-66" and provides first-rate dependability and support policies, all at a reasonable price.
Regarding NM's Universal Winstation 433, The December 1993 issue of Compute Magazine said, "Although the computer comes from a small Utah company that you may never have heard of, it shows all the quality you'd expect from a Dell, Compaq or IBM machine."
Other similar positive comments have been made in PC Magazine, PC World Magazine, Computer Shopper, PC World and Windows Sources.