There is a pattern that runs through the professional decisions of Haroldo Jacobovicz: an orientation toward sectors where technology is not yet fully embedded, and where the absence of practical solutions creates measurable disadvantage for the people and institutions that need them. Arlequim Technologies, the cloud computing company he founded in 2021, fits squarely within that pattern. Its core service — using virtualization to improve the performance of older or underpowered hardware — addresses a gap that affects consumers, businesses, and public bodies alike.
Jacobovicz trained as a civil engineer at the Federal University of Paraná, but it was information technology, not construction, that pulled his attention in the early stages of his career. His first attempt at a technology business, launched while he was still completing his degree, targeted small retailers with computerised inventory and point-of-sale systems. The market was not ready, and the company closed within two years. That early experience with mistimed entry into an underprepared market shaped how he thought about launching subsequent ventures — with more attention to whether conditions were right, not just whether the idea was sound.
The businesses that followed were built on that more measured approach. Minauro, his computer rental and maintenance company, was structured around the specific constraints of public sector procurement, offering multi-year contracts that included regular hardware refreshes. It grew steadily, absorbed several software companies through acquisition, and eventually became the e-Governe Group — a technology solutions provider still active in Brazilian municipalities today. Horizons Telecom, founded in 2010, was built from the ground up to serve the corporate connectivity market and became a recognised name in that sector over the following decade.
When Haroldo Jacobovicz turned to Arlequim Technologies, he brought this accumulated knowledge to a problem he had been watching develop across multiple markets. Hardware replacement cycles create persistent disadvantage for those who cannot keep pace with them. A school running five-year-old machines, a small business whose workstations predate current operating requirements, a gamer whose computer falls short of the minimum specifications for the titles they want to play — each faces a version of the same issue. Buying new equipment is the standard answer, but it is not always a feasible one.
Arlequim’s virtualization service offers a different answer. By routing processing through cloud infrastructure, the service enables existing devices to perform at a level that their hardware alone could not sustain. The three markets the company serves — corporate, public sector, and retail with a focus on gaming — each present this problem in a different form, and the service addresses all three without requiring the end user to make a capital investment in new devices.
Brazil’s gaming market adds particular momentum to the retail strand of that proposition. With nearly three-quarters of the country’s internet users engaging with online games, and with modern titles placing increasingly demanding requirements on hardware, the gap between what many players own and what current games need is both wide and growing. For Haroldo Jacobovicz, that gap represents both a business opportunity and a continuation of the access-oriented thinking that has informed his work across more than three decades in technology.