Tech One snares PNG contract

Australian developer Technology One has won a US$4.42 million contract with the Papua New Guinea government to implement its integrated financial management and budgeting software.

The project –- part of a plan for economic reform in the troubled nation -– was funded by the Asian Development Bank, AusAID and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The government is replacing Oracle Financials with Tech One’s Finance One (finance); Business One (budgeting) and Enterprise One (business intelligence) products which fall under the ‘Connected Intelligence’ banner.

More than 40 percent of Technology One’s customers are government departments. “This is our second major deal in the government market this calendar year, with the whole of Samoan government also choosing Technology One’s fully integrated financial management and HR/payroll solution,” said Adrian Di Marco, chairman at Technology One.

“We’re starting to notice in the Tier 1 [market] there’s significant opportunities opening up for us,” he said. Competing technology from the likes of SAP, Oracle and others was “old, expensive and not delivering”, he said.

The local developer’s software had been “dismissed in the past” because it didn’t have an Oracle or SAP logo, he said. “Now people are looking past that. People see through the brand.”

The company predominantly focuses on the mid-sector however Tier 1 customers liked the fact that the software was easy to use, he said.

Technology One’s software would be supporting many thousands of users at the Papua New Guinea government. The company would chase new business in the South Pacific region and was due to officially opened an office in London, England in January 2006.

Thaddeus Kambanei, secretary for the department of finance at the PNG government, said the objectives of the project were to improve accountability, transparency and better utilisation of the government’s limited resources.

“The new system will enable better prioritisation of government efforts and improved fiscal control to be achieved through planning, budgeting and monitoring,” he said in a statement.

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