News
Joint venture gives Wincor Nixdorf strong support
Longtime business partners Wincor Nixdorf and Tyngsboro, Mass.-based software developer AutoTell Systems have formed a joint venture. The two parties hope that the new Wincor AutoTell will further raise the German ATM manufacturer's profile in the North American market, especially in the off-premise world
August 7, 2001
After Siemens Nixdorf sold its Retail and Banking Systems unit to the investment firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. and GS Capital Partners III, L.P. in late 1999, the newly renamedWincor Nixdorfidentified software applications and ongoing technical support and service as two key areas to drive its expansion into the North American ATM market.
To beef up its offerings in those two areas, Wincor Nixdorf is turning to a longtime business partner, Tyngsboro, Mass.-based software developer AutoTell Systems. The German ATM manufacturer and AutoTellhave been members of a mutual admiration society dating back to the early '80s, when President Bill Waugh and several other AutoTell principals worked for Nixdorf Computer, a precursor of Siemens Nixdorf Retail and Banking Systems.
After Waugh founded AutoTell in 1994, his new company continued to develop applications and provide technical support and training for Siemens Nixdorf, and later Wincor Nixdorf. "They gave us third-party contracts to continue doing what we had done for them when we were still employees," Waugh said.
So it comes as no surprise that the two companies decided to establish a joint venture last December, with Wincor Nixdorf taking a 51 percent ownership stake in AutoTell. According to Waugh, the newly formedWincor AutoTell is a sign of Wincor Nixdorf's long term commitment to the North American market.
"I think it's a signal that Wincor Nixdorf is really going to go after this market," he said. "They're making sure they have the proper sales and service support in place to their sales channels and to their customers."
Julia Pallasch, Wincor Nixdorf's marketing director in North America, agreed, noting that the company has been dogged by rumors that it was not in the market for the long haul.
"When you purchase 51 percent of a company, even if it's a small company, it's quite an investment. I think it shows that Wincor Nixdorf is committed to this market, especially to the installed base," she said.
Late 2000 and early 2001 marked a flurry of North American activity for Wincor Nixdorf, particularly in the still-thriving off-premise market.
In September of 2000, the manufacturer introduced the ProCash 1000, a cash dispenser positioned to compete with the Cross MiniBank 2000, NCR EasyPoint 55, Diebold CashSource Plus, Tidel Ignition Series and Triton 9600. It also solidified its relationship with IBM, its exclusive distributor in Canada, establishing a similar relationship in the U.S. In April of 2001, Wincor Nixdorf announced it had won its highest-profile U.S. contract to date, to supply 1,000 machines over two years for E*Trade ATM's deployment in Target stores.
Waugh and his developers have produced several applications specifically designed for the off-premise ATM market, including AT Web, which supports Web enablement; AT View, for monitoring and management; AT Play, which supports the coordination of multiple advertising campaigns; and AT Convert, which allows dial-up ATMs to be connected to a legacy host.
For its Target machines, E*Trade is using AT Observer, a program in which Wincor AutoTell support staff monitor ATMs using AT View.
Pallasch said that AT View's graphical user interface, which shows transaction levels, cash levels, paper levels and more, is "extraordinary" because it allows users to view hundreds of machines at a glance and quickly determine where problems are and if they need to be addressed. Machines in red indicate serious problems, such as a power outage; those with minor problems such as low cash levels are yellow, and problem-free machines are green.
The joint venture marks an extension of the two companies' existing software philosophies, Waugh said, noting that Wincor Nixdorf's ProClassic architecture was the first ATM software platform based on WOSA (Windows Open System Architecture) and that all of AutoTell's products are also WOSA based.
While financial institutions and other deployers have typically relied on their hardware providers for software, Waugh said that is starting to change. Open standards are important in an increasingly multi-vendor environment.
"Banks no longer need to go to a single vendor for solutions. They're sending their RFPs (requests for projects) to different hardware and software vendors," he said. "A new set of third-party companies are coming in and responding to RFPs. Wincor AutoTell will be one of those companies now."
Retail deployers, with their emphasis on the bottom line, also may not want to commit to a single vendor, Waugh added. "They just want to get the best deal, and that may mean different hardware and software providers."
Wincor Nixdorf, which shipped 759 machines in the U.S. and 872 machines in Canada last year, hopes that Wincor AutoTell's software will improve its numbers in the North American market. But the manufacturer also anticipates a boost in other countries, where off-premise deployment is just beginning to develop.
"Frankly we weren't quite ready when the off-premise opportunities in the U.S. first started to pop up," Pallasch said. "In other markets we've been watching that are really starting to take off, we can go after those opportunities right away."
While Wincor Nixdorf sales channels will be primary customers for Wincor AutoTell products, it won't be an exclusive agreement.
"Wincor AutoTell operates as an entirely autonomous company. They will pursue business opportunities and partnerships totally independent from Wincor Nixdorf where it makes sense to do so," Pallasch said.
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