From gravel roads to rally fans' PCs

By ADAM GIFFORD

As New Zealand rally ace Possum Bourne slews his Subaru Impreza over gravel roads in his quest for the World Rally Championship, fans and supporters are being kept up to date with web technology developed by Auckland company Greenwood Technology.

Possum Bourne Motorsport is using ReadyUpdate, an application developed for Sir Peter Blake's Blakexpeditions site.

Greenwood chief operating officer Frank Janssen said the software had been rewritten into a "shrink wrapped" version over the past year.

It could be run on a server or hosted by Greenwood.

Set-up costs about $3000, depending on how much website customisation is required. Hosting costs $150 to $400 a month, depending on traffic volume.

ReadyUpdate works by taking a Word document emailed from the field to a website and converting it at the server into new website content.

It also notifies a pre-selected mailing list that the site has been updated.

Possum Bourne Motorsport general manager Murray Brown said the Bourne team installed the software a week before the first World Rally competition in Sweden, and produced updates for the 800 supporters and sponsors on its mailing list, using a laptop computer and a wireless modem.

"I can sit in the service park writing bulletins, and they are posted on the site in three minutes, with photos," Brown said.

Janssen said other companies using ReadyUpdate included Learnz, which provides geography content for an educational website, swimsuit company Orca, which wants to use it for catalogue updates and promotional events, and a recruitment company, which wants to post candidate information to its clients.

Greenwood, owned by management, Deutsche Capital Partners and Chicago-based chief executive Chris Coffin's Vision Ventures, has reoriented itself over the past year from a custom development, hosting and services company to focus on developing products which will appeal to North American customers.

Possum Bourne Motorsport

Greenwood Technology

Learnz

Blakexpeditions