Integrated Tertiary Software (Pty) Ltd (ITS), the leader in the provision of administrative software and services to the education sector in southern Africa, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Integrear Abacus (Pty) Ltd from Integrear Limited, effective from 1 November 2005.
Integrear Abacus, renamed to ITS Abacus, specialises in the creation of optimised timetabling solutions.
"Abacus has developed the optimising software application, using the world renowned ILOG optimisation components," Derick Jordaan, CEO of ITS, explains. "This software empowers higher education institutions across the spectrum to generate effective, optimised timetables."
ITS Abacus consists of the following modules:
* o!Timetable, which provides tertiary institutions with optimised subject and classroom timetables;
* o!Exam helps tertiary institutions to generate optimised examination timetables; and
* o!Booking aimed at venue and equipment booking via a Web interface.
"An interface between the ITS and the Abacus systems is already in place," Jordaan explains. "ITS Abacus complements the existing ITS solution set and business strategy, so the potential synergies could not be ignored when we started to examine this transaction. We do not anticipate there to be any significant impact on the current ITS development plans."
Existing ITS clients will benefit in a number of ways as a result of the acquisition. The current interface between ITS system and the Abacus o! modules will be further enhanced to optimise the flow of information between the two systems. Alternative timetabling mechanisms with enhanced optimising functionality will now be available as add-on options to ITS clients.
Clients currently making use of ITS system functionality for timetabling and booking will be able to continue using the ITS software without having to migrate to the Abacus system.
The benefit to existing Abacus clients, as well as to potential new clients, includes effective fulfilment of unparalleled support by a company that specialises in the development, deployment and support of systems in the higher and further education sectors. The ITS Abacus systems will continue to interface with the individual student management systems currently used by existing clients. No changes are foreseen to this methodology. The currently defined product roadmap of the Abacus system will also not be compromised.
In addition, key staff members involved with the development and support of the Abacus system have joined the ranks of ITS at its head office and a skills transfer process will be defined to broaden the base of technical and support staff available to ITS Abacus clients.
For more information or to arrange for a demonstration of the ITS Abacus systems, please contact ITS Abacus at marketing@its.co.za.
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