Tenuteq International, the worldwide distributor of the Masterpack ERP system, has been placed in liquidation but Conduit, the e-business offshoot of distributor Renaissance, has put its hand up to support local customers.
Conduit has told customers that it would become a Masterpack distributor when Tenuteq’s owner, South Africa-based Ability Corporation, decided to close the company down in May. Tenuteq was placed in liquidation last month.
Ability reportedly bought Tenuteq in May 2000 for its worldwide customer base rather than its products. It had planned to switch customers over to Ability’s own product but the company collapsed before the software was developed.
Conduit already had a partnership with Australian software developer Evolve360, a company made up of former Masterpack developers who left Masterpack in 1991 when it became Tenuteq and decided to become a reseller of Pivotal CRM products and Great Plains financial software. Tenuteq decided it would no longer spend money enhancing the Masterpack product, and would only provide customers with support for existing versions and statutory updates for taxation changes.
Evolve360 developed its own product based on Masterpack legacy code and had agreed not to approach Masterpack customers before 2002, but with the collapse of Ability it has found itself as the only option for many distribution and logistics companies relying on Masterpack software. Masterpack customers in New Zealand include Panasonic, Canon, Renaissance, Minolta and Biolab Scientific.
Panasonic IT manager Ian Parker says his company moved to Conduit three months ago.