Datacom hunts more Aussie councils

Datacom has its sights set on councils in Australia after the acquisition of a software development rival.

The integrator, which is headquartered in New Zealand and has a large base in Australia, has acquired Origen Technology, a small software house based in the town of Tauranga that works for around 20 percent of the NZ local government market.

The acquisition adds around 15 staff, expanding the headcount of Datacom's team working on software development and integration for local government to 42 staff.

Datacom works for about 70 percent of Kiwi councils, and also has a growing share here in Australia, said Jonathan Ladd, chief executive of Datacom Group.

Ladd told CRN that the addition of Origen would help Datacom target the 500-off local councils across Australia.

"We have a decent-sized business selling IT services and infrastructure to councils [in Australia] and most states. This gives us the edge to offer more complete software suite on a cloud consumption basis."

Ladd said that there was a major opportunity in Australia due to the pressure on local councils to amalgamate.

"From data centre and infrastructure to software, cloud and business process outsourcing, this [local governments] is a target vertical market for us in NZ and Australia."

He added that Datacom owns or "long leases" four of its own data centres in Australia and sub-leases space in six others.