Marshal thriving in NZ

By PETER GRIFFIN

It may have moved its New Zealand development team to Texas, but the company that bought tech darling Marshal Software has increased its local business 28 per cent.

Nasdaq-listed NetIQ said the closure of the Auckland-based Marshal development lab had not disrupted business.

Mail Marshal still had a large share of the anti-spam and content-filtering market and had increased its business on the back of new licensing models and a booming security market.

"Despite all of the changes, we grew the New Zealand Marshal business 28 per cent," said NetIQ's Sydney-based regional director, David Taylor.

Marshal products had also contributed to 40 per cent year-on-year growth across the Tasman in systems and security management products.

Some New Zealand staff had transferred to NetIQ's Houston development centre. A single NetIQ manager was based in New Zealand to manage the relationship with the company's distributor, Express Data.

NetIQ had loosened its licensing model for Marshal security software to attract smaller companies.

"We changed the licensing to make it easier for small companies to manage," said Taylor.

Previously the entry-level licence for Marshal software was 75 users. That had been reduced to 25.

NetIQ has also changed its licensing model for health providers, changing from a per-user model to a per-computer one.

That meant hospitals and clinics where several people used the same computer would pay less in licensing costs.

NetIQ was seeking to increase its market share in the area of systems management.

In the next few weeks it would launch network management software products AppManager and Vivinet. They would be aimed at companies running VoIP (voice over internet protocol) applications.

"Now we have to figure out how to introduce these new technologies," said Taylor.

NetIQ paid $45 million for Marshal Software in December 2002.

Taylor described the purchase as one of the most important in NetIQ's history of acquisitions.