An almost year-long dispute between local company SGA Integrators and international technology supplier Indus International has been settled in court, in favour of SGA. The case was decided in the South African High Court in late November.
SGA operates in the electronic document management, workflow and portal tool marketplace. It supplies, installs and supports the FYI electronic document management and workflow toolset, developed by US-based Identitech, and previously distributed in this country by SGA, under terms of an agreement with Indus International.
The issue under contention was SGA`s right to provide ongoing technical support to local users of the FYI product, despite the fact that its distribution agreement with Indus had been concluded. The case was further complicated by claims of unlawful competition, lodged against SGA on the grounds that Indus had appointed ICL SA as its new local distributor.
Both claims were dismissed. SGA now distributes the product suite via its relationship with Siemens SA.
Rob Gillespie, SGA Group CEO, is firm in his view of the situation: "All we want to do now is get on with business. The court ruling has cleared up a lot of uncertainty within our client base, and helped stabilise the market. We`re not a political company, but we certainly weren`t going to allow anyone to come in and take what we`ve built over a number of years."
SGA has developed major enhancements to the FYI product which are now available on a worldwide basis, and recently released Dejevu, a browser-based portal toolset. The company has also established an international distribution channel via its associate, Global Process Automation.
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