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PIPELINE CONTRACTOR SELECTS INTACCT/IBM ERP ON DEMAND SOLUTION

Intacct Corp and IBM announced that O.J. Pipelines, one of Canada's largest gas and liquid pipeline contractors, has chosen Intacct's ERP On Demand applications, which are deployed on IBM's e-business Hosting infrastructure, to manage the financials of its multimillion-dollar projects. O.J. Pipelines switched to Intacct to reduce operating costs and more effectively collaborate with remote field teams, ensuring headquarters has instant access to key financial information about each project.

"Intacct's unique MEGA technology enables our field force to provide headquarters with up-to-the-minute information about the cost and progress of each project," said Peter Smith, vice president of finance at O.J. Pipelines. "In our old system, financial reports could be two weeks old by the time they were entered into the central accounting system."

Intacct ERP On Demand gives O.J. Pipelines a fully integrated back-office solution to remotely execute price quotes, billing and accounting functions for multiple construction sites across Canada. Intacct ERP On Demand comes with a full suite of business process applications, including order entry, inventory control, supply chain, time and billing, accounts payable and receivable and more. In addition to a centralized ERP system, Intacct's patent-pending MEGA technology allows O.J. Pipelines' on-site project managers to create invoices, generate reports and update cost estimates in real time on their laptops, which are connected to the Internet via satellite.

Intacct's Web-based applications automate back-end processes for business entities and entire companies. This enables O.J. Pipelines to run its core business more efficiently, using real-time data to manage the performance of projects and business units, including its wholly owned subsidiary RMS Welding Systems and the company's equipment lease arm, which touts $10 million of inventory.

O.J. Pipelines is famous for having completed one of the largest pipeline constructions in Canada, the $145-million North Bay Shortcut project, which laid 2,500 miles of large-diameter pipe in muskeg and permafrost, through mountains and canals, across prairie and urban areas. The company offers estimating, consulting and engineering services for pipeline construction and reclamation.

"Companies are seeking technology solutions to address their business challenges, better serve customers, and help reduce costs," said Scott Hebner, vice president of strategy and marketing of ISV & Developer Relations at IBM. "We are dedicated to providing O.J. Pipelines with a secure, flexible and cost-effective IT infrastructure to manage its financials so they can focus on the core competencies."

IBM e-business hosting helps customers obtain computing as speedy, flexible and reliable services. IBM e-business hosting services include security, computing capacity on demand and application services. Most services are sold on a usage basis.

"Multi-entity enterprises like O.J. Pipelines adopt Intacct and IBM as the standard in on-demand ERP solutions to lower costs, increase productivity and execute business process functionalities that simply aren't possible with other Web-based solutions," said Robert J. Jurkowski, CEO of Intacct. "With multimillion-dollar projects on the line, O.J. Pipelines can leverage Intacct ERP On Demand to increase profitability."

As a graduate of IBM's Application Enablement Program, Intacct has worked extensively with IBM to take advantage of the growing market opportunity for new application deployment models and deliver its software as a service. Through the program, IBM works with leading independent software vendors to assess, transform and deploy their software in on-demand environments, such as Grid computing, IBM's Universal Management Infrastructure (UMI) and Web Services. By adopting alternative software deployment methods, ISVs can meet customer demand for subscription-based and hosted applications while experiencing faster application deployment times, shorter sales cycles and increased market reach.