NZ's Pingar relaunches; pins hopes on platform agnostic API

Tauranga-based Pingar has moved to an entirely new business model with its new application programming interface (API) that works with any platform.

The company has previous been best known for its proprietary product that summarises search engine results into one document, and its push - supported by government funding (see below) -  to crack the Chinese market.

An API allows software to ‘talk’ to each other to perform certain functions and Pingar is presenting its offering today and tomorrow at the Sydney Microsoft SharePoint Conference.

A Microsoft start-up accelerator partner, Pingar has designed the API as a series of 18 components that will allow developers to directly design products for their clients, meaning clients will pay for the components they use.

These products will then allow the clients to use Pingar’s data discovery platform - software that extracts, summarises or removes desired information from masses of documents.

The API’s launch is being marketed as a full re-launch for Pingar itself. CEO Peter Wren-Hilton said this was because of the new distribution model which changed six months ago from tailor-made end-products for customers.

The new business model of allowing developers to access core technology and build their own product is expected to keep the Pingar research team interested and focussed on new research to provide more component.

Break-even this year
It is also expected to produce far more revenue than the previous model, with the company expecting to break even this year. The API was projected to be Pingar’s principal revenue source.

The company had all ready raised over $3 million from a small number of private investors and has received more than $300,000 from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and $100,000 from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (now part of the new Ministry of Science and Innovation).

Not just Microsoft
The API went live at 3am yesterday morning and so far feedback has been “hugely positive” from Microsoft and other companies, who said they had never seen this kind of delivery and components, said Mr Wren-Hilton.

He said the API, which was designed for Microsoft SharePoint but can be used on any platform (including Apple Mac), would remove geographic boundaries and ideally build an ecosystem of developers employing the components.  "Any developer working in any development environment can use the Pingar components."

“It’s just a totally new way of delivering our technology to our potential client base.”

Chinese-language version to launch April
Mr Wren-Hilton said that a Chinese-language API and website would be launched in April, with Pingar expanding its Hong Kong presence that month also. He said the new business model was Pingar’s move to stay ahead of the game.