ISSUE No.116 - 12.09.2002 Tikit interims a sign of the times - Best legal site in Northern Ireland - FloSuite takes BPM global - News in brief - New approach to CPD training - English Law Society selects CRM supplier

TIKIT INTERIMS A SIGN OF THE TIMES
The AIM-listed Tikit Group has just published its interim results for the six months to 30 June 2002. The turnover for the six months to 30 June 2002 was £3.73 million, representing a fall of about 20% on the same period last year (£4.70 million). This entire shortfall was from reduced software sales and the reduction of training associated with those sales. Services and support revenues (excluding training) grew by 8.5% to £2.0 million. Overall, the Group achieved an unaudited profit before tax and goodwill for the period of £268,000 (2001: £450,000). Earnings per share before amortisation of goodwill were 1.6p (2001: 3.3p).

Chairman Mike McGoun said "Tikit has, for some time, experienced difficult conditions in the market for third party software. Whilst order prospects during the early months of the year were encouraging, clients have been taking an increasingly cautious approach in committing to major IT expenditure. Against this background, software sales in June were below the levels normally experienced as clients have historically committed to projects at the end of the second quarter. Expenditure on CRM and document management projects, in particular, was below expectations and the impact of this extended to Tikit's own enhancement modules for this software. Software sales that have been made are in a very price-competitive environment, such that our normal margins have generally been reduced on those sales." Tikit has now introduced a programme that should cut costs by £500K per annum and McGoun anticipates improved trading conditions during the second half of this year.

COMMENT: Tikit's experience mirror those of a lot of other suppliers - although as a quoted company Tikit does not enjoy the luxury of being able to bury its bad news. The Insider's own researches suggest that the bubble may have burst for both knowledge management and CRM systems, with just about everyone who would want them having already made their biggest investments in this technology. We're also seeing the first signs of a swing away from best-of-breed as the automatic option for larger firms. Spending-wise, our figures suggest only 25% of the UK's top 100 firms will be spending more on IT over the next 12 months, with 50% freezing budgets and 25% planning to spend less. Matter-centric systems look like being the next big thing - a factor Tikit has spotted - and we reckon that the next year will see growing enthusiasm for non-Microsoft systems, with the likes of Linux, Star Office and MySQL all attracting fans. See also diary for details of Tikit's seminar programme next week.

BEST LEGAL WEB SITE IN NORTHERN ISLAND
The Irish legal portal Legal-Island.com and legal systems developer Opsis Software have launched a competition to find the best legal web site in Northern Ireland. The closing date for entries - which are open only to members of the Law Society of Northern Ireland - is Friday 1st November and entry forms can be obtained by emailing competition@legal-island.com Insider editor Charles Christian is one of the judging panel, who wuill be looking at usability, accessibility and overall corporate image. The winner will be announced on 14 November.

FLOSUITE TAKES BPM GLOBAL
The FloSuite case & business process management system, which began life with a few sites in Scotland, is starting to enjoy success on a global basis. Stibbe, one of the largest Benelux region law firms, with around 700 staff, has signed a £500K contract with FloSuite developer Infographics for the supply and implementation of the system. FloSuite will be integrated with CMS Open, the InterAction CRM and iManage document management.

And the Solution 6 Group (developers of CMS Open and Keystone PMS products) has also sealed a deal with Sheppard Mullin, a US West Coast law firm with 350 lawyers - marking the first major FloSuite sale into the American market. Other major international wins for FloSuite include a £250K deal with Malaysia's leading commercial firm Zaid Ibrahim, who will use FloSuite to manage debt recovery processes.

FloSuite Commercial Product Manager Russell Wood says the key differentiator that persuaded this latest round of clients to purchase FloSuite was its 'no programming required' end user configuration capability which utilises Microsoft Visio for process definition, .NET Xforms for input forms design and XML services for information exchange with external systems. www.flosuite.com

NEWS IN BRIEF

GLOBAL LEGAL EVENTS CALENDAR - The international association of law firms Lex Mundi is developing what it hopes will become the first ever comprehensive calendar of legal events around the world. Access is free and the site already has listing up until 2005. www.lexmundi.org/calendar/index.html

ONLINE ELEMENT BOOSTS SALES - The Royal & SunAlliance insurance group reports that since introducing access to online legal services as part of its More Th>n family oriented legal protection product in the UK, sales have increased by 25% and over 50% of policyholders have opted to take the online element in addition to the core legal expenses package. The online services element includes access to over 200 interactive legal documents covering everything from making a will to getting an undefended divorce. The latter is the most requested document on the service, which is a bit ironic since this is a family legal service.

iMANAGE ENJOYING SUCCESS IN EUROLAND - The DMS supplier iManage is currently recruiting for new staff for its European offices in France, Germany and The Netherlands. The move follows a number of "significant wins" which the Insider understands include law firm partners of Slaughter & May with Continental Europe and member firms belonging to the the PwC/Landwell law firm network.

BLP EXPORTS E-LEGAL SERVICE TO SPAIN - Berwin Leighton Paisner is exporting its e-commerce legal expertise to Spain. The firm has concluded an agreement with Spanish law firm Mullerat to develop a Spanish and Portuguese version of complytoday, Berwin Leighton Paisner's web-based data protection compliance service. The new service is known as ComplyTodayIberica. Companies in Spain and Portugal will be able to buy the service in a modular format from www.complytodayiberica.com

GHOSTFILL NOW AVAILABLE IN AUSTRALIA - Sydney-based Sinch Software (02-9718 4076) has just announced that it is now selling and supporting the GhostFill forms automation and document assembly into the Australian and New Zealand markets. Sinch Software director Simon Lewis reckons GhostFill "is the most capable product on the market today as it provides solutions for a diverse range of needs including WordPerfect and even Macintosh users, as well as those who work with PDF, XML and HTML formats." It has been certified by Microsoft as being 100% compatible with Windows XP operating system and one of its flagship sites is Osborne Clarke in the UK who use it to drive their Gamesbiz.net online facility for computer games developers.

DENIM BOX LOOKING FOR DISTRIBUTORS - Austrian IT company Denim Solutions GmbH is looking for vendors who would interested in distributing its Denim Box email management system within the UK. The product, which is already in use in a number of financial sector and governmental/quango sites in Austria and Germany, combines workflow and KM elements to provide a central archive that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. There is an English language web site at www.denimbox.com

LEGAL INFO VIA STREAMING VIDEO - The LAW on the WEB legal information portal is creating a series of streaming videos for its readers at http://www.lawontheweb.co.uk/shorts.htm The first is a video head-to-head in which two people are seen discussing the legal situation surrounding drinking and driving. The video has been deliberately written and shot in a humorous way but the information it provides is serious. LAW on the WEB teamed up with Rollingball Digital TV to create and shoot an initial three legal shorts covering drink driving, basic employment issues and employment rights for women.

SJ BERWIN SIGN UP FOR THE VAULT - SJ Berwin has selected the Enterprise Vault email management system from KVS to address the issues of escalating corporate email volumes, migration of high maintenance personal folders and helping to improve the overall reliability of Microsoft Exchange. The Enterprise Vault, sold via KVS distributor First Stop Computer Group, also features a matter search and retrieval capability, providing a cost-effective solution to the firm's need for an email archiving storage system. Herbert Smith is another big user of the KVS vault at the firm's IT director John Rogers will be discussing email storage issues at the LegalTech Europe conference which takes place in London in November.

NEW APPROACH TO COMPUTER BASED CPD TRAINING
On 15 October, Semple Piggot Rochez will launch The Legal Practitioner, a new CD ROM/online hybrid service aimed at providing continuing professional development to smaller law firms with no limit on the number of users.

The service features a twice yearly legal update on CD ROM containing six 30 minute audio visual presentations by senior barristers and leading experts explaining the impact that the latest cases and legislative developments have had on the way that lawyers actually do business - with full supporting transcript text. These presentations focus on developments in the following practice areas: criminal law, litigation, employment law, family law, property law & welfare law. The CDs are supported by a complementary online service at www.legalpractitioner.co.uk offering a mix of specific additional updating material and general information in a magazine format.

Each of the presentations contained on the CDs is accredited by the Law Society for one hour CPD. In total the service is accredited for 12 hours CPD per person per annum. An annual subscription to The Legal Practitioner costs just £499 + VAT per firm. As there is no limit on the number of users, the CD may be put on a firm's intranet, with the result that an entire firm can be trained for less than the cost of a single traditional face to face training session. As a special introductory offer the first 50 law firms to subscribe will receive a 50% discount on the annual subscription price. To subscribe to The Legal Practitioner or for further information please email John Pitman at johnp@spr-law.com or phone 0208 742 1357.

LAW SOCIETY SELECTS ASPECTIVE FOR CRM PROJECT
The English Law Society has chosen ebusiness solutions provider Aspective to help design, implement and manage the IT aspect of Programme Engineer, a "multi-million pound" five-year initiative focusing on improving service levels to the legal profession, the general public and government bodies. Aspective is responsible for managing the delivery of Programme Engineer's new web site and will also implement a major customer relationship management (CRM) system to improve communication with the Society's customer base, which includes over 80,000 solicitors in England and Wales and the general public.

The Law Society aims to conduct more business online by giving customers secure access to information through their internet site, while a redesigned intranet will improve access to information for internal staff through advanced knowledge management capabilities. The CRM system will manage all customer records, such as case handling, registration information and complaints management. The system will be used by up to 1000 people internally. Additionally, Aspective will provide hosted and managed services for both the Society's internet and intranet sites, which are expected to handle over 300,000 inquiries per month, and the CRM system. The design phase for the first major release of the system has now been completed and it is expected that the new internet and intranet sites will be available by the end of the year. The Society will start using the new CRM system early in 2003.