Wellington tech firm moves to India

WELLINGTON - An Anglo-Kiwi web advertising firm Firstlight Online has moved its software development facility to India from Wellington.

The company is merging with Nasdaq-listed web-search firm Convera, despite a bid by former Firstlight director Brett Bailey to sink the deal.

“There had been a push to move software development to a lower-cost centre for a while. But there’s been a long history of doing development here and I did not want that to happen,” Bailey said.

Upset with the move to India, Bailey fiercely battled Firstlight’s plans to merge with Convera.

But he says his objections were unfounded and he has since withdrawn them. He is still a minority shareholder in the merged company.

Firstlight creates advertisements for online publications such as Britain’s The Financial Times that are customised to fit the articles they run alongside. Readers can click for more information from the advertiser. The links bear the brand of the publisher, which charges advertisers a subscription fee rather than a price per click.

Convera, which plans to delist after the merger, provides web-search services for publishers, which can create customised search applications for specialist audiences under their own brand.

The merged company will continue to provide advertising and search services to publishers and plans to build a series of “industry search engines”, says Convera.

It will have more than 60 corporate customer accounts and manage 120 websites for about 1500 advertisers. (ANI)