Computerworld

100 million and counting as Kiwi software firm reaches major milestone

“We have the numbers ticking over in the office and on our website. We look at it and we’re just blown away."

Wellington software company Abletech has counted how many times Kiwis have used their address auto-complete tool to get street addresses accurate, and it's just tipped over 100,000,000.

“We have the numbers ticking over in the office and on our website,” says Nigel Ramsay, founder, Abletech, who started the counting in June 2007.

“We look at it and we’re just blown away."

The tool, called AddressFinder, is used by New Zealanders every day to help with everything from flower deliveries to letters.

Ramsay says businesses use it to tidy up bulk address lists too, with Abletech reaching this milestone as popularity for the auto-completer rises along with its more advanced tools.

“We’ve got such a fast and accurate service that we’re able to offer extra services now,” Ramsay adds.

“Like our NearbyAddress service that takes your GPS and turns it into a street address."

Ramsey says Abletech grew from three like-minded local men who all admit to being ‘big on New Zealand’, himself, Marcus Baguley and Carl Penwarden.

“We’re proud of being Kiwis working for Kiwis,” he adds. “What I really like is that small to medium sized New Zealand companies can use AddressFinder for free.”

Kiwi businesses wanting to use AddressFinder sign-up online and put the AddressFinder widget on their own site for when people make a purchase and enter their delivery address.

“There are other auto-completers out there but we’re very active keeping all the New Zealand data up to date for AddressFinder,” Ramsay adds.

“If someone subdivides and moves onto a smaller section we need to make sure they’re easily found.”

For Ramsay, watching the AddressFinder counter tick over from 99,999,999 to 100,000,000 was a good day in the company's Willis Street office.

“There were thumbs ups, whooping and even a cake to celebrate,” he adds. “It’s a very big number.”