New-Tel

This is from today's West Australian.

WA pair shine in technology stakes Two WA companies have been named among Australia's top -10 fastest-growing technology plays by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, with the accounting giant labelling the State a fertile ground for industry innovation. Osborne Park telco New Tel and Internet kiosk developer pieNETWORKS cracked the top end of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 rankings, announced in Sydney last night, with five other WA companies also earning a slot in the program's second year. The Fast 50, launched last year, recongnises and profiles Australia's fastest-growing technology companies - both public and private - based on the percentage revenue growth over three years from 1999 to 2001. Telco services provider New Tel was WA's top-ranked performer and Australia's top-ranked performer and Australia's top-ranked telco, coming in at eight position with revenue growth of 746 per cent over the past three years. PieNETWORKS came in the ninth with a revenue jump of 567 per cent over the same period. Both New Tel and pieNETWORKS also ranked highly in last year's Fast 50 - but last year the positions were reversed, with pieNETWORKS WA's top performer in 12th spot and New Tel running further behind in 19th. The Fast 50 ranking comes after a period of aggressive expansion and rocketing revenues for New Tel , which became earnings positive before interest, tax and amortisation in October. In March, New Tel announced it had agreed to pay a total of $50 million in cash and scrip to acquire New South Wales market reseller Digi-Plus Holdings - a move the company said would push its annual revenues past $250 million. "In the last 12 months we have taken ourselves from the specialised telco to a full service carrier … we can now target essentially anybody and everybody for their telco services, not just mobile or long distance," said New Tel chief executive Peter Malone. "Digiplus … brings with it 200,000 customers and it's devoid of any networks capability, it's essentially front - end so we can't just plug it into our backbone. "We're running at 30 per cent (of network) capacity, but plugging DigiPlus in puts us at 50 per cent capacity for our current network. Mr Malone said New Tel would now rank as Australia's fifth-biggest full service telco, an area of the market he felt confident was best placed to ride out in the industry shake-out. "I think the market' maturing … it's full service or nothing, It's turning back to where it came from, the full service telco is what people want," he said. The other WA companies to make this year's list were online securities group Sanford, ranked 21st with growth of 302 per cent, software solutions provider HarvestRoad, ranked 39th with growth of 133 per cent, Web developer Pretzel Logic, ranked 40th with 129 per cent, wireless messaging developer Commtech Wireless, ranked 45th with 120 per cent growth and video on demand applications developer PIVoD Technologies, ranked 48th with 109 per cent growth. Pretzel Logic and HarvestRoad also made last year's list but three other WA companies which made the 2001 Fast 50 - iiNet, HP JDV and Cape Range Wireless - slipped from the ranking this year. The national number one rankings this year went to NSW online entertainment company Chaos Group, which chalked up revenue growth of 5143 per cent over three years. The national Rising Star award - which is judged on a company's core focus, market, business model, management team, access to funds and technical sustainability - went to Queensland network security player Wedgetail Communications. WA's Rising Star was global positioning system (GPS) asset tracking group Micronics. Deloitte technology, media and telecommunications partner Peter McIver said this year's Fast 50 had seen WA continue to provide a "significant proportion" of the list. "The State's technological innovation is making its mark in many different areas, with new ways for detecting and processing minerals, marine engineering breakthroughs, advanced engine technologies, secure funds transfer and communications systems," said Mr McIver. "Our most internationally competitive businesses have an impressive record of developing and adopting new technologies and undertaking commercially focused research and development." Deloitte plans to launch an Asia-Pasific Technology Fast 500 by 2004.

I hold New-Tel