07 July 2012
Oman has selected the Orion utility billing system for a large-scale pilot project, with a view to using it to bill power for the entire country. 

Electricity Holding Company (EHC), whose four subsidiaries manage the distribution of power to more than 650,000 homes and businesses in the sultanate, has chosen Agility CIS, a New Zealand-based company which created Orion, to run the pilot project, according to a statement on Agility's website.

The statement said that the pilot project will be used initially to bill 50,000 customers for six months, before EHC decides whether to roll the system out for the rest of the country. Agility said that it is planing to have the pilot ready for launch in eight months.

The company said that it won the tender in the face of fierce global competition, including US and European software giants. The Kiwi firm has a local partnership with Software Systems LLC (SSL) in Oman.

"A project like this happens only once for a country like Oman," said Michael Lim, executive manager, information technology, EHC.

"We looked at the functionality very closely and found Orion's time for implementation to be faster than the others. Their readiness to deploy and data migration plan were all key factors in making the decision to choose Orion. After a long and robust tender process, we concluded that Agility's Orion was the most flexible and dynamic solution."

Mike Thorne, CEO of Agility, sees the contract as breaking ground in a new and promising market for the Orion software.

© Muscat Daily 2012