Peace to lay off 54 NZ-based software developers

Peace Software has put on hold plans to set up development centres in the United States and Australia, and will instead lay off a third of its Auckland-based development staff.

Research and development vice-president Tony Engberg said the company, which makes billing and customer information systems (CIS) for power, gas and water utilities, was in the final stages of negotiating sales to large companies in the US and Europe. "We want to close those two deals in a way that we don't lose focus on what we need to deliver them," Engberg said.

"We are trying to keep the books healthy and balanced."

He said 54 of the 140 Auckland positions would go. Between eight and 14 staff would be shifted to the services team, which customises and installs software for specific customers.

Staff will find out on Tuesday who is out, with tenure and skills the main criteria for retention.

"No one is happy, no one is surprised. We have been objective as we can," Engberg said.

"We will run a job expo next week, where we will assess whether people will be available to do some contracting for us or if they can be placed out. We are trying to do this as humanely as possible."

The CIS market worldwide has been in a slump for several years, as governments pulled back from energy sector deregulation, removing the pressure for utilities to buy new software.

Peace has been kept busy implementing large sites in North America and Australia, but those projects are now scaling down and it needs more sales to maintain momentum.

Engberg said the priority for the development group was to move Peace's software on to a services-oriented architecture, which would make it easier to fit into diverse customer environments.

"That project is the thing which gets us out of a constant project-funding mode. We will wind up with a true software product rather than one which requires constant customisation for each sale, with all the hiring and firing we need to do that."

The offshore development centres were supposed to work on modules covering credit collection, settlements and metering technologies.

Engberg said they would only go ahead when partnerships were formed with customers to do the work. "We will then add staff back in to cover them."