Peace Software makes sale to US power company

By ADAM GIFFORD

Auckland software house Peace Software has sold its Energy suite to one of Michigan's largest electricity suppliers, Nordic Electric.

Peace chief executive Brian Peace said the contract was another step towards the company becoming a leading provider of billing and customer information systems to the deregulating United States electricity market.

The sale to Nordic is a straight licences and services deal, although the price, understood to be several million dollars, is confidential.

"It's a healthy contract for us," said Mr Peace.

Nordic's traditional market is supplying power to about 5000 large industrial and commercial customers, led by General Motors and Daimler Chrysler.

"It has a small number of large, complex customers, but it is making a strategic move into the residential mass-market and intends to grow its total energy load tenfold by the end of the year," said Mr Peace.

ECM (Energy Customer Management) was one of the few products that could handle commercial and residential billing within the same system. The Energy ECM will be installed before the end of the year and used for customer acquisition and enrolment, customer information, billing and accounts receivable, through to demand forecasting and settlement.

Nordic chief executive and owner John Baardson said Michigan and neighbouring Ohio were deregulating their energy markets over the next 18 months.

His company had wanted a web-based product that would allow it to take advantage.

"Energy presented the best value in terms of versatility and functionality for our specific market requirements," said Mr Baardson.

Peace Software has lost all its electricity sites in New Zealand because of industry consolidation, but it now has eight North American customers and about 80 of its 230 staff are based there.