Keycorp's ongoing relationship with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia continued this week when the bank placed a $A5 million order for EFTPOS terminals and associated peripheral equipment. The terminals, which were originally developed by a research venture established by Keycorp and the bank, will be put to use by customers of the bank's merchant services.
Objective Corporation, a listed Australian developer of knowledge management software, is boosting the scale of its operations in the UK after its products were approved early this month by the British Public Record Office for use in government departments. The company recently made its first government sale in the UK to the Local Enterprise Development Unit, but now expects explosive growth. "This opens the way for us to compete for UK government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars," explained Tony Walls, joint CEO of Objective. "The UK Government has set aside around $A2.6 billion on top of the annual $A22 billion IT spend to fund its move to e-business. On top of that, the stringent record-keeping requirements of the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts are fuelling government demand for knowledge management and electronic records management," Walls added.
Telecommunications products distributor Quadtel has agreed to buy IT distributor Marketing Results in a cash and share swap valued at about $A1.3 million. "This acquisition creates a new market opportunity for Quadtel to move large volumes of ADSL modems and broadband products through retail channels," explained David Ramsay, CEO of Quadtel. Marketing Results' retail customers include Harvey Norman, Dick Smith and Officeworks.
Computershare has agreed to acquire US company Financial Data Concepts, which provides share ownership data and other market intelligence to share issuers, brokers and fund managers. "Global share ownership intelligence provides a significant value-added service to Computershare's corporate customer base," a spokesman said.
Recently listed software developer Tomato Technologies -- best known for its Blue Chip Trader share market analysis software -- has agreed to buy the Collison Finance and Investments mortgage financing business for $A3 million in cash and 16 million shares. A spokesman said the acquisition is "in line with Tomato's strategy of identifying synergistic businesses which provide specialist investment services for the consumer".
Victorian telecommunications company Plexus International has been awarded a $A1.4 million Federal Government grant to help develop its Fraudscope insurance fraud detection package. A spokesman said Fraudscope is a knowledge-based system that will be released on to international markets in the third quarter of this year. Its first release will focus on motor vehicle insurance claims, and it is expected to take two years to extend it to cover the complete range of insurance categories.