Indian business partner Satyam Computer Services Ltd., the third largest player in the global offshoring market, expects to take Optimation's Equip utility billing product to the broader Indian market on the back of the NZ$500,000 (US$317,000) Maldives contract.

And the possibilities extend further, mainly to China. That's because Equip is integrated with Siebel customer service management. Oracle Corp. recently bought Siebel and will act as a marketing front end for Equip.

Optimation director Alistair Owens said Equip and Siebel together make up a world-leading product. 'They're very deep into customer management and we're very deep into billing. Our competitors, such as SAP, are all monolithic, so their research and development is spread a lot more thinly.'

It's probably the most exciting open systems product in New Zealand at the moment, he said. 'Equip is component based and interfaces to the best other products through a service oriented architecture."

'We see this as a NZ$30 million to NZ$50 million business in the medium term, most of it from offshore.'