Friday saw the announcement by Computer Management Group (UK) Ltd of its acquisition of Mayne Nickless Computer Services Ltd. In addition, the UK launch of CMG Information Services for the Public Sector Ltd’s new methology for corporate Geographic Information Systems took place. CMG’s is paying UKP3m for Mayne Nickless Computer Services, which operates mainly in the security and courier services area and will add UKP2.5m to CMG’s payroll and other processing businesses. CMG claims that business with its PayFact2000 system, which was introduced earlier this year, has grown rapidly, with new companies, such as UBS Phillips & Drew, Reuter and Mattessons Walls adopting it. CMG has also got its foot in the door of the Geographic Information world by announcing details of Clovis, its methodology for corporate GIS. GIS seems to be a broad term for which there is no specific definition, but it refers to accessing spatially-related information from different databases and integrating them. CMG believes that Clovis can make a valuable contribution to the way in which GIS should be approached. The methodology, which has been developed over the last three years with the help of the Technical University of Delft, has been devised to allow modern digital mapping technology to be integrated with existing administrative databases. In this way, existing information sources can be used to maximum effect. CMG is aiming Clovis at local authorities and utilities, and has already won a few contracts. The company hopes that its methodology will become the European stand-ard for GIS, but GIS faces many problems, such as copyright and government regulations. Clovis is not hardware or software-specific, but Bull, Unisys and Intergraph will be marketing it with their software packages. Clovis involves consultation with prospective customers to find out what their specific needs are. From this information, a strategy is proposed for the company and then CMG will offer advice on the type of software the company should purchase to run their applications. Bull’s software package, Coordinate, was developed two and a half years ago and runs on proprietary Unix machines supporting Tektronix’ graphic terminals, or on a personal computer with a Tektronix emulator. Unisys has just launched its software package for GIS, ARGIS 4GE, also designed for Unix. Inter-graph has two software packages, Microstation and Tigres, which run on any Unix machine, but not on personal computers as they are unable to handle the database. The three will work with CMG to promote their software packages but may also sell them independently.
