In a move to service the insurance, oil and retail industries Lotus premium business partner, REFTec, has increased its total work force to 54 employees and opened the doors of a twelve-person Cape Town operation.Wayne Matthews, CEO at REFTec, attributes the expansion to the increasing maturity of the Cape market and subsequent untapped opportunities for Lotus Notes and related technologies."Few providers are focusing solely on Lotus Notes and Domino solutions in Cape Town. The market is still small but the demand is definitely there," he says."We`d been watching market dynamics for some time and when we verified a shift towards the Cape it was simply a matter of searching for qualified staff," he says."There are seven CLPs [certified Lotus professionals] in Cape Town with two more coming on board. That will bring our overall total to fifteen."The company plans to secure the lion`s share of the Lotus Notes market in the insurance, oil and retail sectors - with most major players headquartered in Cape Town. The company also intends boosting education concerning Notes` dominant strength in the messaging, groupware and Web arena.Matthews says there are existing Lotus installations his company hopes to begin work on, most of which he expects to be Internet/intranet (I`Net) related. "We are seeing as much as 60% of our business go the way of I`Net solutions based on Notes, Domino and browsers. The rest is services and support [of same]," he says.Craig Hockley, newly-appointed business development manager for Lotus Cape Town, says the mother city holds potentially 15% of the total South African business for IT companies and that opportunity for Lotus and its partners abounds."Our Cape Town office is relatively small. It is strategically imperative that we work closely with our partners to grow business," he says. "REFTec`s large qualified staff complement should lead to it becoming one of the region`s most important Lotus software development houses and support centres."Putting its technological muscle where its mouth is, REFTec is also investing heavily in the concept of `virtual development teams`. The company will make use of Lotus Notes and other technologies to ensure the Johannesburg and Cape Town offices collaborate closely on projects, depite obvious physical distance.Regarding future plans Matthews says that nationally the company should reach market size by the middle of this year. The focus will then become one of boosting service and support contracts and growing business in the Cape and, potentially, other areas, he says."From a Lotus business partner standpoint there are a vast amount of small to medium size deals in Johannesburg. The Cape Town market might be smaller in size but there are big orders to be had," Matthews asserts.
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