Touting NZ's techno wares to the world

Despite the economic gloom, 10 New Zealand companies were in Germany last week selling themselves to the world.

It's the fifth year New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) has co-ordinated a stand for technology exporters at CeBIT in Hanover, the world's largest business-to-business trade show.

As well as allowing exhibitors to share a stand for a much lower cost than if they went on their own, the agency also runs workshops to prepare new attendees for what they might expect, and uses its extensive networks to channel prospective customers, distributors or business partners in their direction.

"When we started this five years ago, we wanted to improve New Zealand's perception in the industry," says ICT sector director Hans Frauenlob.

"CeBIT is a place where you can get the closest to global reach. For companies just to be here is shorthand for 'we are credible'."

The fair attracts half a million people to 30 huge exhibition halls spread around the city.

Frauenlob says as well as doing business, CeBIT allows companies to benchmark their products against others in their industry.

He says NZTE is always on the lookout for companies with quirky and interesting technology that can stand out.

That's one reason NextWindow has been showing its optical touch screen technology at CeBIT since the programme started.

"Typically people tend to be tactile, so when they see something they can experience through touch, they are drawn to it," says Mike Nesbitt, the Auckland company's senior support sales engineer.

NextWindow's CeBIT display includes an air hockey game and a "coffee table" display with information about the other New Zealand exhibitors as well as games and multimedia demonstrations.

Nesbitt says NextWindow uses tiny sensors mounted in the edge of the screen to detect where the finger or pointer is touching the surface.

It does that for a fraction of the price of competing products with similar technology, and with a higher brightness and image clarity.

Another New Zealand exhibitor, Fingertapp, has developed software allowing the sensors to detect multiple fingers, pens or styluses.

Ben Wilde from Fingertapp says over the past couple of years the company, previously known as Unlimited Reality, has gone from doing education software and custom development for Palmerston North firms to taking on the global market with leading edge touch technology.

"People making touch screens need content to help sell their product," says Wilde.

The Fingertapp software platform allows developers to quickly develop multi-touch applications that can combine images, 3D models and video content along with natural touch screen gestures.

Unlike Microsoft, which only works on the latest version of Windows, Fingertapp can run on several generations of Windows.

It is creating versions for Linux and Mac OS X, and a software development kit is already available so Adobe Flash developers can touch-enable their applications.

"It's not just about touching a screen but how you put software together. It makes you rethink the way you build applications," Wilde says.

He says CeBIT is a chance to meet partners and would-be partners.

"There's a lot of noise at CeBIT but it helps with our profile. The economic climate is not ideal but being a relatively small company we can do enough business to make headway," he says.

He says technology developers like Fingertapp have a limited window of time to get into the market and get noticed before larger and more well-funded overseas competitors catch up.

One company which thinks the economic climate will help direct attention to its product is electronic payments company Flo2Cash. Sales manager Adrian Feasey says as well as providing merchants with the ability to process credit card payments through six channels, including mobile phones and e-commerce, it has built in a debt recovery solution.

"We were looking for a way to give people a mobile payment solution that was easily accessible though devices they would normally be using, like a phone, and which would not be an exorbitant cost," Feasey says.

He says CeBIT is seen as the doorway to the European Union.

Other Kiwis at CeBIT include digital dictation software company WinScribe, TracMap, which makes a robust mobile data terminal and associated GPS guidance software for use in agriculture and viticulture, and Bluewater Systems, a specialist in designing products which use embedded ARM processors, which is showing its latest high-resolution digital security camera, "Big-Eye".

Hardware maker Thureon will show its space-saving Armarac server room in a box, and Cortexo is touting its Live Human Machine Interface (LiveHMI) software, which enables businesses to monitor production plants and equipment in remote locations through an internet browser.

adamgifford5@gmail.com