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The Bermuda Sun,
Jeannine Klein, October 15, 2003
An Amalgamation this week of Igility Limited, the holding company for Systems Business Integration (Sbi) and Bermuda Computer Services Limited (BCS) will in the short-term have greatest impact on Internet Service Provider Transact.
BCS general manager Aaron Smith told the Bermuda Sun yesterday that he and his partner, CEO of Sbi Jamie Thain, plan to use recent technological innovations to bring value added solutions to an already competitive ISP marketplace.
"Transact has had a communications licence since 1969 and has been providing Internet service to business for several years, but brand recognition comes from competing in the entire market so we had to open up our residential side of the business," he said. "There are at least five ISP services in Bermuda now. What we really want to do is differentiate Transact and that will be one of the first projects we'll see from this group of companies."
Mr Smith says that while the company will continue to grow the residential side of its business, the small office and home office are the key market for Transact. Mr Smith says that with new input and direction from technologists inside Sbi the partners hope to make Transact more profitable than it has been in the past.
"We have a lot of good value added solutions for that marketplace. A lot of things that small organizations require that the large organizations take for granted are things we believe we can offer and we can expand upon."
BCS Properties, a 9,000 square foot office space on Dundonald Street is included in the amalgamation. Although Sbi staff will move to the premises Mr Smith says BCS Agencies (IBM Bermuda), Transact and Sbi will continue to work independently of one another.
"There will be tremendous synergies gained because the three companies do cover a broad spectrum of the IT marketplace in Bermuda and there will be ways our customers will benefit from association," he said. The separation is in part due to confidentiality agreements BCS agencies has with IBM. That side of the business is a particularly good fit for Sbi which is already an IBM business partner in software.
On the longer term, Mr Smith says that while the companies will remain independent there is still opportunity for them to work together on larger projects and offer more resources to customers.
"There have been areas where BCS has gone to customers and has always had to recommend a customer talk to somebody else to solve our problem that we weren't able to handle and there's been areas where Sbi has done the same. Given our new mix, rather than causally asking someone to go and talk to a different vender we can actively manage that and perhaps even do a joint call as business partners representing each company side by side saying this is part of the equation we bring and this is the part our partner brings
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