Swiss-based FAST Video Security and JSE-listed Intervid have ended their partnership, with each company claiming it was the one that terminated the contract.
FAST develops, produces and distributes digital video storage and transmission systems (both hardware and software) for network-based closed-circuit television applications requiring a high level of security.
The companies signed an original equipment manufacturer contract relating to the product in 2002. However, FAST CEO Beat Meier says the contract has now been awarded to Sensormatic SA, the South African business partner of Sensormatic Electronics Corporation.
How this came to be is a matter of disagreement between FAST and Intervid.
Meier says FAST terminated the contract with Intervid because the deal did not produce the expected turnover and also because there were substantial outstanding amounts for units delivered in terms of the contract.
However, Intervid Technologies director Clive Putman says it was in fact Intervid that notified FAST that it wanted to terminate the contract.
"In the long term we wanted to replace the FAST product with our own product," he says.
He says the contract calls for a termination period of six months and as a result Intervid will remain a distributor of the FAST product for the next six months.
Meier says Sensormatic SA, with sales totalling more than R200 million, has established a dominant position within the local urban surveillance market as well as in the domain of loss-prevention and surveillance solutions for the local retail industry.
With a primary focus on casinos and hotels, the company is rapidly broadening its base internationally, realising projects in the Middle East and the Far East as well as in Eastern Europe, he says.
"With Sensormatic SA`s longstanding strength in the retail sector, its dominance of the casino market and its positioning with customers in the mining industry, we recognised that we had found an ideal new partner," says Meier.
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