Why is Unify Group’s business of developing software companies based in Christchurch, New Zealand?

An article written in North & South asks the same question to many of Christchurch’s software entrepreneurs - including Unify Group director Ross Brown. Extracts from that article, Silicon Plains, follow.

The Press, reports in more detail about Unify Group in the article entitled Turing pair offer nudge for software startups.

A recent software project for the Medical Council of New Zealand provides a new service to the New Zealand public:

• Online medical register uses IIS: Computerworld New Zealand, 19 September 2002.
• Chch firm puts doctor in public eye: The Press, 24 September 2002.

Silicon Plains

By Paul Titus, published in North & South, June 2002.

Pundits fret the New Zealand economy is headed for a low-tech, agrarian backwater. But in Christchurch dozens of electronics and software companies follow in the footsteps of South Island innovators like jet boat inventor Bill Hamilton and motorcycle designer John Britten. Some have hundreds of employees, reports Paul Titus, some just have one or two working away in a garage. They generate excitement and a subculture where it’s cool to be a geek and the stars create business worth millions.

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Why Christchurch? It’s big enough to provide the elements of a quality urban life that attracts and holds young urban professionals: restaurants, playhouses, movie theatres, a symphony plus ready access to beaches and the Southern Alps.

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It’s not just the established firms such as the Big Six and Holliday that face the dilemma of how to expand beyond local confines. It’s a problem facing Christchurch h-tech companies in all stages of growth. Because the climate is a volatile one, some younger entrepreneurs have had to sell out and walk away from their initial creations but they also have the energy and enthusiasm to start again.

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Another example of someone prepared to start over is Ross Brown. He and partner Tim Brown created the custom software development and web design company Turing Solutions. They expanded it to a 30-person enterprise, then sold it to Computerland, which changed its name to Ceritas Digital. The two Browns stayed on to manage the company after the sale but when differences developed over its direction, they left.

Now they have started Unify Group which houses several projects including a JADE software development firm. Ross Brown (37) calls himself a “serial entrepreneur”. He says Unify is an “enterprise accelerator” that is prepared to offer whatever a promising techie might lack to make it in the commercial world – financing, technological input, or management expertise.

Does the sale of New Zealand companies offshore leave them vulnerable to closure should global conditions change?

Not according to Brown. “Christchurch has a strong base. You can’t damage it by closing down one company. The type of technology companies New Zealanders create save people money and generate wealth. They are desirable in the global economy. You can’t hurt Christchurch by cutting down one tall poppy. The place is a field of tall poppies.”

Turing pair offer nudge for software startups

By Carol Webb, The Press, 10 September 2002.

In the 1990s Turing Solutions founders Ross and Tim Brown used assiduous planning and goal setting to realise their vision of a leading software development and Web design company based in Christchurch. Now, two years after selling Turing, they want to help put other entrepreneurs on course for software business success. Carol Webb reports. They say a key ingredient behind the formation of their new company, Unify Group, is the ability to tap into the tech-friendly Christchurch culture. "It's an easy place to go to work, and people are not totally focused on their business life," says Ross Brown. "By my reckoning, one in 300 people here work with software for a living. Everybody knows someone in the business and as a city Christchurch is very comfortable with that way of life." He says that is a lot different to the perception of the sector when he arrived from Dunedin in 1991 for a job with Aoraki Corporation, now Jade. "Back then it was very isolated. There were people who literally didn't know that software was connected with computers. Now it's very much a part of daily life here."

THINKING IT THROUGH: Ross, left, and Tim Brown say their personalities complement each other and are good for setting new business directions. DEAN KOZANIC/The Press

Ross and Tim Brown are not related, but had shared a vision of setting up an information technology business since they met as Computer Science students at Otago University in the early 1980s.

After a couple of years working in the UK, then Otago, Tim joined Ross in Christchurch and they founded Turing Solutions in 1997.

Their initial aims were to build a direct client base that required medium-size software solutions, and to develop relationships with bigger companies for joint larger-scale projects

On target

Ross Brown says a target of two years was set to achieve these aims, with a company size of 20 considered necessary to support the customer base. A takeover of Promethean Webdesign in 1998 added graphics, design and animation skills to the Turing mix, which had an initial focus on software development using Jade and Microsoft technologies.

"We met the target company size after 18 months," says Ross Brown. "In 1999, Turing Solutions was the only medium-size hybrid software development and Web design company in the South Island. It was also established as the dominant supplier of e-commerce services to South Island businesses." 

Three years after its inception, Turing employed 30 people and in 2000 it became part of Computerland's New Zealand-wide operation, after the Browns sold their stake. Turing was subsequently renamed Ceritas Digital, and Ross and Tim Brown left to set up Unify Group. 

Ross Brown said that after building a single large software company, it was time to explore different business models based on smaller, discrete products and services. They are building on the Jade software development activities and NZ. com website that previously operated under the Turing banner, and a major Jade custom software project with scope for further commercialisation is approaching launch-date.

The partners see scope for assisting other entrepreneurs to build software businesses in a similar way, and are seeking out startups to provide incubation-style nurturing at their Colombo Street premises. Unify expects to take equity in businesses it incubates, providing business skills to manage and accelerate growth. 

Ross and Tim Brown say they have complementary skills and personalities that have helped drive their own business ventures. 

Spark plug, flywheel 

"Ross is the spark plug, and I'm the flywheel," says Tim Brown. "He tends to head off in all directions while I drag him back. It's my job to make sure we're not trying to do too much. I like to think that if we only had a spark plug, or only had a flywheel, it wouldn't work." 
A key passion of the Unify Group directors is the transformation of their NZ. Com website into a unique national portal and branding mechanism for New Zealand on the world stage.

The NZ. Com joint-venture website portal is a key asset of Unify Group. Ross Brown said the site, founded in the early days of the commercial availability of the Internet by expat New Zealander Michael Witbrock, is jointly owned by Unify Group and US-based Akiko International.

Akiko, a group of expats who formed around Mr Witbrock, is the "silent partner" in the venture, he said.

NZ. Com is linked from more than 15,000 websites and has about 50,000 unique visitors a month. About 14 gigabytes of information are transferred from the site monthly. 
But Ross Brown said the site's brand gave it huge, as yet unrealised potential for New Zealand to sell itself to the world.

"It's an issue of public good," he said.

The directors have developed business plans and models for use of the website as a unifying banner for New Zealand businesses, cities, and government organisations ranging from tourism operators to high-tech manufacturers and exporters.

They have pitched the idea widely and say the advantage they have over other . com country domains is that no sub-domain addresses have been sold. New Zealand companies and organisations who have arrived too late in the online world to obtain a useful . com address will be able to strongly brand themselves with a name ending . nz.com.

"New Zealand has been promoting its clean, green image for tourism but this will show the world that we have much more to offer. It will showcase New Zealand as innovative and technologically advanced," said Tim Brown. 

Online medical register uses IIS

Computerworld New Zealand, 19 September 2002.

An online version of the medical register that went live last week is a straightforward implementation of Microsoft Internet Information Server and Access, says Christchurch-based developer Unify.

It is updated with a weekly extraction from the Medical Council's main database, but is kept physically separate from that and other council systems.

Security measures have been incorporated to prevent outsiders "screen-scraping" the entire database or subsets of it, to use -- for example, for mass mailouts.

The register will give permission to patients to question doctors and their experience, says Carolyn Bull, a member of the Medical Council.

An inquirer can also search for doctors specialising in certain fields and in certain geographical areas. Full contact information is not made available for privacy reasons, but it would not be hard to find in the phone directory if one knew the doctor's full name, says Unify's Malcolm McCulloch.

The register allows inquirers to check a doctor's qualifications, experience and appropriate fields of expertise. There have been recent cases of doctors practising branches of medicine for which they were not adequately trained.

The register is here or through the "Search Register" link from the Medical Council home page.

Chch firm puts doctor in public eye

The Press, 24 September 2002.

Patients can check their doctor's professional history on a free online register developed in Christchurch and launched last week by the Medical Council.

The register, developed in Jade by Unify Group, gives details of 10,000 doctors, including their qualifications and restrictions on their practice. It will be updated weekly as part of the Medical Council's website, and will confirm whether a doctor holds a practising certificate, the type and date of registration, and the doctor's area of practice.

Unify director Ross Brown said that the Medical Council had a series of disparate databases and wanted a new application developed that allowed it to manage information in one place. The process began in 1998 with Jade as the core technology, and Unify became the solution developer nearly two years ago.

Mr Brown said Unify has up to four software development staff working on the system at any one time. "New features are added to the system in a modular fashion and the online register is the latest addition."

The Medical Council's website (http://www.mcnz.org.nz) uses Microsoft technology. The online register is created by extracting the public information about the registered doctors into an Access database and providing searching facilities for that database at the website. Microsoft's ASP language drives the search facility and the site is maintained using FrontPage.

Mr Brown said Unify had been exploring opportunities for other health registration bodies to use the software system in New Zealand and Australia.