Midware document management seeks resellers

ASX-listed holding company Midware has spun off a fourth subsidiary and is seeking resellers to target customers for its web content management software.

Nick Nicolaou said a new company, Rapid Web Solutions, would join Midware's three other units, outsourcer SynergyIT, mortgage processing division MPC, and parent division software developer Midware Solutions.

He said the new arm was aimed at lifting brand awareness and marketing opportunities for its content management application, dubbed Rapid Web Publisher. Some 35 of Midware's total 130 staff would work in the new division.

Nicolaou said Rapid Web Solutions planned to add another five to eight "fairly committed" resellers over the next six months.

"We're looking at resellers that are potentially doing things in the web space, that want to provide more advanced applications and technology to their clients, and organisations working more at a consultancy level as well," he said.

"We see a huge opportunity in the document content management space," Nicolaou said. "A lot of organisations are looking at re-engineering and revamping their internet sites."

He declined to provide any figures.

He said that the company already had two Australian resellers in the document management space and "about four" in the legal space, which he refused to name. "They're only small companies," Nicolaou said.

Midware Solutions names on its website Sydney's Hands-on Systems, The Network Factory, Matrix Solutions, Interctive IT and JustIT as "approved" system integrators for its software.

It also names NSW's Forsythes IT, Queensland's IBS Infotech, South Australia's Tripos Group and Illumis, and Western Australia's Practice Management Professionals as VARs.

Nicolaou said that Rapid Web Solutions had plans to expand globally.

Midware had been providing content management software since 1996 and harnessed document management expertise dating back to 1988, he said.

"But that was primarily through the legal business," he said. Today, the company also targeted corporate and government business, Nicolaou said.

Rapid Web Publisher -- which recently released a .NET version to add to its Lotus Domino iteration -- stood out from its rivals because it used XML and XSL, he said.