I am prompted to write regarding the piece appearing in Insurance Times (21 March).
First, the article gives the impression that significant numbers of CSC users are cancelling their contracts with us and moving to insurE-com. This is not the case.
I am aware of formal written notice from only one broker - a WinTAM user, not a Grapevine user - wishing to cancel his CSC contract and move to insurE-com. Furthermore, his intention is to transfer support of his existing WinTAM system to insurE-com, not to take a replacement system.
I do know that a number of our users have registered with insurE-com (which is free to most) and are trying out their service/software in parallel with their existing CSC systems. Many Sirius, Misys and other software house users, are doing exactly the same.
Second, an unnamed IT analyst is quoted as saying:"There is a sense that CSC's products are coming to the end of their life." This statement ignores the (public domain) fact that we have launched two new products into the market recently - Visual Office (formerly Vision) and electRa M3.
Third, the article stated that insurE-com has taken over our contract with Applied Systems. This is not true and is a serious misrepresentation of the actual position.
We still have a distribution and support agreement in place with Applied Systems, continue to work with it on the UK variant of the WinTAM product, and are currently rolling the latest version out to the customer base. However, this agreement is no longer exclusive and the exclusivity was terminated by mutual consent in the middle of last year.
The way the article has been written could be taken to mean that we no longer have the rights to distribute or support the WinTAM product, and this is plainly not the case.
Tony Barker
General insurance marketing director
CSC
