Another IT high flyer falls

After a decade of industrious software development, going global from New Zealand as a software exporter, business intelligence software maker Compudigm is now in receivership, its Wellington team of 20 decimated.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Last January, I caught up with Andrew Cardno, the founder of Compudigm, who was running the company from its Las Vegas headquarters near the massive casinos and hotels that used Compudigm's data visualisation software to keep tabs on their gaming floor and hospitality operations.
Sitting at Compudigm's boardroom table, Cardno told me about his vision for the company, which included a potential share market listing to raise capital or a merger with another company.
"My job is to grow the company. Whether we maintain our independence is unforecastable. But you've got to have an exit strategy," he told me.
There was an exit soon after, but there wasn't much of a strategy involved. By July, Cardno was gone from the company he founded, dismissed it seems on an employment matter but the apparent victim of a boardroom battle for control of the company, which had a multitude of shareholders who had invested US$14 million.
IT executive Wout van Loon was appointed to the board in May and became the new chief executive after Cardno's departure. He now seems to be running the company from Belgium, though it is still headquartered in Las Vegas.
Cardno, still living in the US, isn't talking about the collapse, though I know for a fact he is engaged in legal action with Compudigm over the employment issue and is seeking to try and extract his shareholding in the company. There are numerous other lawsuits under way here and in the US involving former employees.
All of those attempts will probably come to nothing as Compudigm has been left heavily in debt. It seems the company's owners, have already moved on, re-branding Compudigm SeePower, the name of its most successful product and revamping its website to erase the turmoil of the last 18 months.
I attempted to contact SeePower chairman Anthony Wamsteker about the Compudigm problems a few weeks ago but he didn't respond.
All up, a pretty shabby ending for a New Zealand software company that had gained the trust of the gaming industry worldwide, a picky audience at the best of times. Its software was tried and tested, it had a strong partnership with data storage specialist Teradata which served it well in pitching to the casinos. Cardno worked hard to revive the company after a post September 11 slump. His name is on many of the company's patents.
Once the receivers have picked through the ashes and the lawsuits have receded, there will be salient lessons to be learnt from the Compudigm story for other kiwi companies looking to go global and needing to bring on new shareholders and executive talent to do so. The lesson will be something along the lines of: pick your investors and partners very, very carefully.