The Orange Rag will be publishing its next round-up of Asia-Pacific news this coming Monday PM (Tuesday AM Sydney time).
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Friday, August 28
Next round of Asia-Pacific news out on Monday
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 28 Aug 2009 15:00 BST
Another Elite win and a "better recipe for success"
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 28 Aug 2009 10:02 BST
At a meeting with Steve Beuge, the CEO of Elite, earlier this week at the ILTA conference in Maryland, he told The Orange Rag that, in the wake of the A&O implementation, Lovells was "re-engaging" and back on course with its Elite 3E PMS implementation and now had a "better recipe for success and clearer vision of the final outcome".
Keeping with the culinary metaphor, the proof of the pudding includes the fact that... • over the past 60 days, five more 3E sites have gone live (there are now 24 organisations live on 3E) • and, this month (August) has seen three more 3E orders – one in Australia (an old Aderant site - see below) + one in the UK + one in the US. (The latter two are an Enterprise upgrade and a 3rd party legacy system swap out.) Beuge added that the company was now "starting to think about new products, new markets and possible acquisitions". That Australian win... Seventy lawyer M+K Lawyers, which has offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Victoria, has selected 3E as its new practice management system. The firm's chief financial officer Len Methananda said the firm selected Elite 3E because they needed "a practice management system that will easily scale as our business grows and also allow us to meet evolving and unanticipated client expectation." Adding that "We have been constrained by our current system's dated technology and its 'band aid' approach to new functionality." Orange Rag sources say the firm currently runs an old Aderant CMS system but had "stopped speaking to Aderant years ago" and that "the marriage had been over a long time ans it was only a case of when the divorce would be announced." Thursday, August 13
Asia-Pacific news round-up
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 13 Aug 2009 01:00 BST
More news from the Asia-Pacific region...
• E-purchasing software upgrade The legal systems house Swerdlove, which now operates out of Bostonin the US, as well as Brisbane, has released an upgrade to its electronic purchase order system for law firms. Open Purchase 2 is designed to centralize purchase and price control to provide better procurement management, avoid time consuming manual processes yet still offer distributed approval, requisitioning and ordering. New features include integration with PMS data (including cost center, ledger and client/matter reference codes) and the ability to handle re-orders with reminders, back orders and short shipments. Commenting on the launch, Swerdlove director Derek Giles said “We're very excited about making OpenPurchase 2 available to the legal and professional services market. Purchasing is an important, yet largely ignored component to effective law firm operations. While some firms have purchasing automation in place, many others follow manual, time consuming processes, while others have struggled trying to use non-legal, enterprise scale systems that are difficult to use and very expensive to purchase and support. OpenPurchase is a simple software application that runs unobtrusively in the background, automates purchasing for the firm, and integrates with existing accounting systems to provide accurate ordering and purchase information." www.swerdlove.com • Kestrel flies into Australia UK-based systems house Kestrel Business Solutions has opened an Australian office, with Desiree Koch as the Australasia New Development Director. Kestrel will also be taking part at next month's Aderant Momentum Asia-Pacific conference in Sydney (10 & 11 September). Kestrel is best known in the UK legal IT market as an Aderant partner, with a number of upgrade and implementation projects already completed, including projects at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain and Farrer and Co. Kestrel has also recently re-launched its website www.kestrel-bs.com • Reckon publishes half-year results Reckon Limited, the Australian group that owns both APS and Billback, has announced operating revenue of A$43.3 million for the six months ended 30 June, up 39%t on the prior year, and EBITDA of $12.9 million, before restructuring costs, up 37%. Reckon posted a net profit after tax of $7 million before restructuring costs, up 25%. The company also reported earnings per share of 5.2 cents, up 25% on the corresponding period in 2008. “The company continues to show consistency in performance with satisfying outcomes in all key performance areas,” said Reckon Group CEO Clive Rabie. “The Professional Division expanded its market share while maintenance revenue growth and our acquisition of Billback strengthened also played a significant role in a strong first half of 2009.” Reckon’s Professional Division increased its operating revenue to $17.6 million, up 66% on the same period a year ago, and EBITDA of $7.0 million, a 51%t rise before restructuring costs. Contributing to the growth was the January acquisition of Billback which resulted in revenues of $6.1 million and an EBITDA of $2.0 million, before restructuring costs. Rabie said the Professional Division will continue to explore additional opportunities to increase market share. In addition, it will count on expanding Reckon’s integrated product offerings to generate increased maintenance revenue from existing clients. A new joint venture in the US under the nQueue Billback banner also presents growth opportunities for the company. Friday, August 7
Charles Christian's Australia trip - thank you darlings, I was fabulous
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 07 Aug 2009 01:00 BST
Time for a thank you note to everyone one I met, talked at and/or stared at glassy-eyed from jet-lag during my trip last week to Australia (well at least to Sydney & Melbourne). Like the Terminator, I will be back – and I will be increasing the Insider's coverage of APAC news, including an Australia/New Zealand (& hopefully wider) version of the Insider 250 chart.
First off a very big thanks to the board & management of DocsCorp for inviting me over in the first place to speak at their user conferences in Sydney & Melbourne, with particular thanks to David Woolstencroft and Kerry Carroll, as well as my minders Anna Pham and Karina Rodrigues, for their hospitality, organisational skills – and a tub of Vegemite Next, thank you to Lucas Garlepp & Lisa Oldfield of Elite for the reception on Tuesday, to Mike Kohlsdorf of Aderant for breakfast on Wednesday, to Althea Ward of DLA Philips Fox for the wine & hospitality in Melbourne on Wednesday, to Derek Giles of Swerdlove for the comedy club trip, to Miles Ashcroft of Freehills for organising the ILTA reception on the Thursday evening, to Marin Sardelic and Stephen Butler of RedRain for dinner on Thursday (they do shut early in Sydney don't they) to Lisa Macdonald and Graham Payne of LexisNexis for the lunch on Friday, and to Linda Bretherton of Aderant for Friday night's party (and for not letting me fall in Sydney harbour). Thanks also to Chrissy Burns of Blake Dawson, Roxana Jarolimek of Clayton Utz, Peter Campbell of Sparke Helmore and Gerard Neiditsch & his team at Mallesons Stephen Jaques for your time. And, along with the vendors and consultancies already mentioned, I'd also like to thank the following for your time and hospitality (and yet more tubs of Vegemite): Anthony Bleasdale of LexisNexis, Robert Fraser of Trinogy Systems, James Hoare & Robyn Williams of MacroView, Brian Armstrong of APS, Andrea Foot of APS Billback, Brian Smith & Paul Houghton of CaseFlow, Howard Hutchins of Speech Recognition Australia, Garry Russell of PursuIT, Jenny Katrivesis & George Katrivesis of Chilli Marketing, Justin North of Janders Dean and David Blumentals of CRM4Legal. (And a special thanks also to Mel O'Tonin.)  The view from reception at Blake Dawson  Charles Christian, surrounded by his minders Anna & Karina (has this turned into a Russian novel) and some of the team at DocsCorp including Kerry Carroll (right) and David Woolstencroft (who seems a lot shorter than I remember) and Shaun Locke. |
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