Cape Town, 26 May 2003
Stellenbosch-based Swist Group Technologies is to launch its Oracle software offering for the Linux environment at Oracle's international AppsWorld conference in London next month.
It says it is only South African company that it knows of to show a developed open source product at the conference.
For the past five years, Swist has made a name for itself developing billing systems for the cellular phone industry. It is using expertise acquired through the development and support of the Oracle products on HP hardware and Open VMS systems to move into the open source arena.
Erwin Blomeyer, Swist's GM for software development, says Linux is considered a rapidly expanding market. "The Linux arena offers real business value at the moment as there is a great demand for it in various companies and in African countries, where it is seen as a cost-effective solution and operating system as it offers performance and availability."
He says Swist's work has been greeted with some enthusiasm by Oracle and it will be the only SA company at the Linux stand among six other companies from the US and Europe.
"Our product fits in with Oracle's 'Unbreakable Linux' strategy that was announced earlier this year. What they were impressed with is that this product is developed and not just a promise," Blomeyer says.
Swist has 19 personnel working in software development, and the product took about six months to develop.
The Oracle AppsWorld Europe 2003 conference will take place from 23 to 26 June in London.
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