Tech: Norwood lands lucrative deal with multi-billion-dollar NZ telco

Norwood Systems (ASX:NOR) is partnering up with $8.4bn Spark New Zealand (ASX:SPK) in a deal that could add up to $50,000 to $100,000 each week extra to its bottom line.

The pair have done a deal that will see small cap Norwood’s voicemail subscription app being made readily available to Spark New Zealand’s customers.

According to Norwood, its app has more advanced features than typical voicemails including AI alerts of urgent messages and the ability to discretely read them.

Spark is actively promoting this service to its business and consumer subscribers under the brand Spark Voicemail.

Norwood told shareholders it anticipates gross revenues during the marketing ramp up could exceed $50,000 to $100,000 every week.

It calculated these numbers from existing data on take-up results, current pricing and a prediction of how well the campaign will be received.

Norwood made the app available during a restricted release period and CEO Paul Ostergaard said he could not have been happier with its performance.

“Given the successful conclusion of the live testing and validation phase, we are now seeing Spark really start to drive demand for the service and we stand ready to support Spark in meeting its aggressive marketing objectives,” he said.

“Norwood can deliver hosted, carrier-grade services that a telco operator can rely on.”

Norwood shares climbed 12.5 per cent this morning.

In other ASX tech news today:

Data centre operator NextDC (ASX:NXT) announced it was bringing forward the fourth stage of construction at its Victorian data centres. It had no choice after a spike in contracted commitments from 15 megawatts to 21 megawatts in just two months. As a consequence, the company had to hike its capital expenditure guidance range by $40m.

Fintech Raiz Invest (ASX:RZI) saw a decline in funds under management in the month of February. It fell by 3.5 per cent, from $481.6m to $464.7m. However this is still 61 per cent higher than the year before and CEO George Lucas said the fall was less than half of the decline in the ASX200.