On the back of DigiCore’s successes in securing new business, particularly tenders, DigiCore Technology significantly expanded its resources and capabilities throughout its departments to support these projects.
Accordingly, a project department was established to ensure a clear split between customer/tender-specific activities and the group’s core technology and product development. This project department will also take responsibility for co-ordinating the deployment of DigiCore’s technology and products at international distributors and globally assist with large tenders and Ctrack implementation at major customers.
To support this growth and additional responsibilities, DigiCore Technology’s premises were redesigned and refurbished to provide a better working environment for our people. Special initiatives were launched to ensure creativity and innovation are retained despite rapid growth.
DigiCore Technology reached a number of significant product milestones during the year. A major upgrade of the Ctrack5 base station software was released in the first half of 2007, merging local and international versions into a single entity to optimise technical support and training. This version is now available in eight languages. New versions of Ctrack’s web or internet interfaces have been released and deployed at major customers.
DigiCore Technology has successfully introduced a new telematics unit based on the low-cost GSM/GPRS/GPS technology platform noted in the prior report. This currently represents more than 50% of unit sales to our Pakistan distributor. This technology platform is the focus of significant development to ensure DigiCore’s telematics products stay ahead of global competition in terms of cost, functionality and flexibility to adapt to customer-specific requirements.
The company has upgraded the Ctrack Solo and Ctrack Secure products and expanded the Solo product range to include various interfaces to third-party systems. A notable achievement is the CAN interface which allows Ctrack Solo to receive speed, distance, fuel and many other parameters directly from the engine-management computers of modern vehicles. The CAN interface has already been approved by two major vehicle manufacturers and DigiCore is working closely with others to enhance the information available on their vehicles via these interfaces.
The DigiCore product support department is responsible for technical support, product/user documentation and distributor training. During the period, the enlarged department successfully executed Ctrack deployment and system upgrades at distributors in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Pakistan and for a major global customer in Australia, Chile and South Africa. The department works closely with DigiCore Technology developers and assists with the proper release process of all new products and the implementation of training and support.
DigiCore Communication Gateway in Centurion remains a core part of DigiCore’s strategy and currently hosts over 50 000 vehicles with more than 15 000 customers receiving their vehicles’ information in real time from this facility. The gateway now also supports the new Ctrack Connect web interface which shows vehicle information to customers worldwide on local maps and in local time.