Microsoft hands Kiwi program dream start

By CHRIS BARTON

Auckland-based software company Keylogix is poised to boldly go where few other New Zealand companies have gone before - into big-time success in the United States market for packaged software.

Providing a helping hand in this seemingly impossible quest is none other than Microsoft, which has signed Keylogix as a top-tier partner for next month's launch of its Office XP.

The deal will give Keylogix's Active Docs - an add-on product for Microsoft Word that provides easy-to-use automation of complex Word documents - a dream start to its US campaign.

The top-tier partner status means unheard of marketing exposure for Active Docs, including showcasing the product during the nine- day, multi-city United States launch of Office XP. There is also a full-page advertisement on page three of the 800,000 print run Microsoft Office Resource Guide, and the chance to hand out demo and evaluation CDs.

Director Dot Johnstone says the new version of Active Docs - described as "Word templates on steroids" - takes advantage of Office XP's Smart Tags feature, which allows users to put links into documents from external sources such as web sites or libraries.

The product lets users create their own Smart Tags using a step-by-step "Wizard' to link to data sources - such as sales data within an accounting program or customer names within contact management software - without programming.

Another feature is Clipping Manager. It enables users to save often-repeated sentences, paragraphs or combinations of text and graphics and then put them into a document with a Smart Tag.

Keylogix has opened an office in Seattle and has also just signed with United States software distributor Tech Data, which has 25,000 resellers across North America. Because of the relatively small size of the software - around 6Mb - Keylogix is using the internet as a distribution mechanism for reseller sales, cutting down on the cost of delivery.

It also sells five-user packs directly from its web site.

Ms Johnstone says the company is getting between 10-70 downloads of its evaluation software a day.

She reckons there are about 3000 copies of the software in the New Zealand, Australian and United States marketplaces.

The first version of Active Docs, which works with Office 2000, was released last September. The software has been sold to eight companies, totalling 500 users in New Zealand.

In March, about 300 licences were sold to companies from accounting, Government, education, insurance and manufacturing sectors.

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