Intaz licences SafeTnet4 to Tranz Rail

5.30 pm - By ADAM GIFFORD

Health and safety software company Intaz has licenced its SafeTnet4 product to Tranz Rail.

Coming while Intaz is trying to raise $10 million on the unlisted market, the announcement "is a tremendous validation of our product and something of a bonus at this time of a major capital raising," Intaz chief executive Nigel Foster said.

The company needs to show some real sales to reassure potential investors. While its prospectus claims Intaz has a sales "pipeline" of $36 million spread evenly between New Zealand and Australia, "the pipeline covers early stage sales targets through to prospects in final contract negotiations," Foster said.

In New Zealand Intaz has a direct sales force identifying prospects. In Australia the company is piggy-backing on deals enterprise software giant Oracle is trying to win for human resources solutions.

According to the prospectus, in the year to March 2000 the previous incarnation of Intaz, Hamilton software house McIntyre White, made a $259,818 profit on revenue of $642,450.

In August that year investors brought together by Wellington merchant bankers Cameron & Co bought a controlling shareholding and started pumping in money to redevelop SafeTnet for the enterprise market.

In this financial year, Intaz expects to make just over $1m in revenue from selling the earlier version of SafeTnet, and will lose $4.9 million.

With SafeTnet4 coming on the market in May, the company predicts revenues in 2003 of $16 million, rising to $86 million (including $14 million profit) two years later.

That means finding large customers here and overseas who are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on specialised software, as well as using new web-based channels to get the software to smaller companies.

Jeff Weber, Tranz Rail general manager of health and safety, said the deal including software, implementation and training was costing his company "well into six figures".

He said Tranz Rail is attempting to address its historically poor record on safety.

"The new management team views safety performance as essential to general business performance," Weber said.

An extensive survey of the market found few suitable software products designed around the needs of business.

"There were a few international products which did not suit New Zealand conditions, a few niche products, but nothing you could buy if you worked in a heavy, dangerous industry and wanted something to help managers understand what they have to do to address health and safety," Mr Weber said.

"We also wanted something which was easy for the end user to customise to the business environment."

Tranz Rail will start design of its system new month and roll it out over the course of the year, eventually servicing 4500 staff employed directly or by contractors.

"Where we are really pushing the system is linking it to voice recognition software, so guys can call up on cell phones or radio telephone and input into the system," Weber said.

Intaz chief executive Nigel Foster said meeting Tranz Rail's voice recognition requirements required substantial development effort.

"We will finish up with another specialist application for the product which we can market internationally," Mr Foster said.