Computerworld

Auckland pair eat own cooking

Two Auckland companies have shown how the proposed ITANZ e-government application centre might create marketable products.
  • Mark Broatch (Unknown Publication)
  • 19 February, 2003 22:00

Two Auckland companies have shown how the proposed ITANZ e-government application centre might create marketable products.

As is so often the case in this remote, cost-counting country, the companies looked to their own resources when they found a business itch they couldn’t scratch. And they have ended up with saleable products in the knowledge management field.

Penrose-based Incubator emerged from the needs of Snell Packaging and Stationery for a customer information system.

Incubator EIP (enterprise information portal) is a web-based product that provides a single view of a company and its customer information including financial, sales, customer project and people data. The product, which was created using SQL and tools such as Visual Basic, is also being used by advertising recruitment firm Marsden Inch.

Marketing head Michael Robertson says the company is keen to “build a really solid Australasian business” with the product.

Howick-based Gelamen, meanwhile, created its self-named knowledge-management product in 2001 for personal and small-office use, but in September last year the company released an SQL version for Windows, GelamenSQL, for medium-sized and large organisations that use SQL servers. In November a Caller ID function was added, capturing caller information and making it available before sales reps answer the phone.

The Windows-based product creates a knowledge base. It can locate using key words physical items such as books, vehicles, people, documents and buildings; files in various formats; internet sites; customers, employees and other individuals; and software applications.

The company — its name is Latin for assembly or gathering — arose out of a need by one of head John Caldwell’s other companies, Polar Instruments, which manufactures machinery and writes software for the printing industry.

Gelamen has recently sold the product to a media company.

Caldwell admits to grand ambitions. When the company designed the software it wanted an application everyone would use, like a word processor.

“Most definitely we intend to market it overseas. If we don’t we won’t regard it as a success.”

An English silk screen printer is piloting the system at the moment to keep track of all its style and image details.