Council  Watch New Zealand

.. previously Avant Internet Services Ltd (1998-2018)




Who is Avant ?

Avant Internet Services Ltd, was set up originally by Murray Green and Terry Cooper, both longtime colleagues, following an outsourcing deal of New Zealand Custom's systems to Datacom. After doing a three-month transitionary contract at Datacom, it was decided to enter the burgeoning market for internet applications, so Avant was established.

Apart from building websites for clients, webmaster roles at Telecom NZ International's division, B.I.Reporting, Database Administration and Operations Support assignments at other client sites followed. Having covered all these roles, many (or all) of which are necessary when managing I.T. systems, we were able to offer the whole range of competencies together as a package. Training and hard-won experience in things like Disaster-Recovery threw right back to our mainframe days, so that we were able to offer a package of well-rounded experience.

After twenty years (1998-2018) we closed the company and retired, however a start has been made on an interesting non-profit venture to get more people involved in watching what their elected councils are doing, and what they can do about it.
Dual ICL2980 Mainframe     Photo by M.Green (Trentham circa 1985)

Tech Museums & Education . . .

Computer History: As we have been in the industry, for as long as the industry itself has existed, we are interested in assisting where possible with any future attempts to expand on the few I.T. exhibits that so far exist in New Zealand.

With only a few items on display at MOTAT in Auckland, and a good effort at Auckland University to make some items available for the public to see on their premises, there is precious little else that has been preserved in New Zealand that we are aware of. To assist in assembling more information pertinent to the history of computing generally and the New Zealand experience in particular, we are getting some bits and pieces from our own experiences, and putting them up on this website as time allows.

The first computer in New Zealand was installed in 1960, however the Automatic Telephone Exchanges, installed first in 1919, were effectively electro-mechanical switching computers. The BPO-2000 type (or Step Exchanges) became commonplace throughout the country by the 1950's, and these used many of the same components that can be found in Colossus, the secret computer originally built by the British Post Office Research laboratories in North London during WW2 to break the German encrypted message system.


Copyright: Avant Cloud Computing Services, 2020