Wokingham, Berkshire-based Sysdeco UK Ltd, the UK subsidiary of the same-named software house in Oslo, Norway has announced the acquisition of Kongsberg, Norway-based Sysscan, a geographic information systems supplier. The new company, Sysdeco Group A/S, which began operation on January 1, has 200 staff and projects a total group turnover of over UKP15m for the current year. Both of the companies that have merged operate in six countries. In the UK, the newly-merged operation has 30 staff and is forecasting revenues of UKP4m. Sysscan was formed in the late 1970s by the Norwegian government via a company called Kongsberg Vapenfabrikk A/S and the German Messerschmitt-Bolkow Blohm AG fighter aircraft people, to focus on geographic information systems for map makers. The company then shifted its emphasis to producing graphical systems for map users, and it was this shift in focus that made Syscan attractive to Oslo-based Sysdeco. The new company combines administrative database applications with map-based data and images to form a multimedia package for the insurance sector. The Sysdeco Group is to launch its multimedia and graphical modelling products via its wholly owned subsidiary Systemator Ltd next week at the Software Tools ’91 exhibition and conference at the Wembley Conference Centre in London. Its products include a toolset called Tellus which is the result of the merger and consists of facilities for document image processing, displaying video pictures, and tagging objects on a map. Also on display will be an integrated fourth generation language software development environment, called Systemator, and a Graphical Modelling system, which runs on Sun Microsystems Inc’s Unix workstations.
