Sterling Software Ltd acquired some surplus baggage along with its $165m Texas Instruments Software Inc acquisition back in April (CI No 3,145), and now it’s off-loaded TI’s InterconnecT telecommunications billing software business on to London-based Intec Systems Ltd, for $6.5m. Intec, based in Ashford, Middlesex and a current user of Sterling’s Cool:Gen component software, says it’s committed to a multi-million dollar product development and international marketing programme for InterconnecT – a call accounting system that collects and provides access to information used to verify and generate invoices from other telecommunications operators for calls leaving and entering the host network. InterconnecT is used by telecommunications providers such as Telewest Inc, Worldcom Inc, Colt Telecommunications Inc, Telecom Malaysia, Telecom Italia, France Telecom SA and the Swiss PTT, and was initially developed for the UK market, one of the earliest to de-regulate. It runs on Unix and Windows NT-based systems and supports Oracle, Sybase and Informix databases. Intec says it has taken most of the staff associated with the product from Sterling, and anticipates 1997-8 revenues will be boosted by an additional $13m on top of the $16m revenues it has been forecasting. Intec is part of the $700m Intec Group of telecommunications, media and information technology companies, which has offices in the UK, Australia, South Africa, Belgium, Denmark and Finland.
