Fightback '09: Putting the 'R' in recovery

The channel put the 'R' into recovery this week as new deals and partnerships promise growth for the ICT industry.

It seems academia was the flavour of the week as universities got in on the action. The good news started with Melbourne-based ISV, Open Windows Contracts, winning a deal with RMIT.

The deal involves a four-month implementation program and came about after the university approached the company.

While the win was a mid-sized contract of $100,000, it will be used as a landmark deal to encourage other universities to change their systems.

In more good news, university residences will be provided with software in a partnership deal between Security vendor, AVG, and ISP, Star-Tech Communications.

AVG security software will be downloadable for Star-Tech’s university housing customers at no financial or bandwidth cost along with a 90-day trial license.

Universities are not the only ones set to benefit as networking vendor, Billion, announced it would cut the price of its broadband router range after a price hike six months ago.

From September 15, Billion is discounting its most popular routers by 19 per cent. The decision came after steady economic recovery and a strong Australian dollar against the greenback.

This comes on the back of news that Brisbane-based independent software vendor Microsoft partner, Zap Technology has won a six-figure deal, to supply KFC and Pizza Hut in Singapore with a Web-based business intelligence solution.

Zap Technology president, Garth Laird, said the mid-sized deal came about thanks to its channel strategy.

Also winning a six-figure deal was ASX-listed ERP vendor, TechnologyOne (ASX:TNE).

The vendor scored a $2 million government contract to revamp Queensland water supplier, Seqwater’s ICT system.

The deal is TechnologyOne’s first with the Queensland Government Statutory Authority. It will provide an end-to-end enterprise system upgrade.

Government contracts are up for grabs with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) which is seeking authorised resellers to provide Symantec backup and recovery software licenses as it expands the vendor’s solution to its x86 and Solaris Unix environments.

ASIC is expanding its existing Symantec solution across its Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Traralgon production systems for backup and restore requirements.

And acquisitions are on the go as Japanese-based integrator and solution provider, NTT Data, completed its purchaseof SAP specialist, Extend Technologies.

The acquisition involved the purchase of 51 per cent of Extend shares. It follows on from NTT Data’s 2008 acquisition of Cirquent and major SAP global partner, itelligence.

Also in acquisition mode is ASX-listed ConnXion Ventures (ASX: CXN) which is set to acquire software-as-a-service specialist, Sonnet, to boost its regional presence.

Sonnet’s purchase price has been set at 5.125 times the audited EBITDA figure for June 30, 2009. It will be paid in the form of CXN ordinary shares at $0.041 per share, or about 68.25 million new shares.

In other news, ASX-listed owner of the Next Byte and Fone Zone chains, Vita Group (VTG) announced its cost cutting and business restructure regime has yielded full-year profit margin increases.

The group posted total pre-tax profits of $8.1 million for the year to June 30, up 27 per cent year-on-year. The results came off full-year revenue of $297.8m.

Dynamic Supplies has engaged business payment specialist, Travelex, to rollout a Web-based overseas payment and foreign exchange solution. .

And Microsoft is releasing several products and services to help local partners make the most of global partner program changes.

Finally, Multimedia Technology has been appointed the sole IT channel distributor for Mimio’s interactive whiteboard range in Australia.

That’s the good news this week, but tune in next time for more delicious Fight Back ’09 news.

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