MEDIA RELEASE
7 February 2012

Wellington’s SilverStripe scores gold for Smart Capital

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown has hailed local software developer SilverStripe’s securing of the Government’s contract for the common web platform as a great achievement for Wellington business.

This morning, 7 February, Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain announced that SilverStripe had been awarded the contract to provide the Common Web Platform (CWP) across government agencies.

The CWP will enable central government agencies to create and deliver high quality websites to New Zealanders, more quickly and at a reduced cost.

"It's excellent that a Wellington company has won this contract and I applaud SilverStripe's success,” says Mayor Wade-Brown.

“It's critical for Wellington's economy that we see more successes like this, with local companies fulfilling significant national contracts. Promotion of these businesses success is a strong part of Wellington’s Digital Strategy.

“Expanding creative digital companies will lead the high-value weightless exports of the future. They thrive in our vibrant compact capital and give us a huge economic opportunity.”

Mayor Wade-Brown quotes Sir Tim Berners-Lee on his recent Wellington visit, ”open markets work better on open platforms”.

A decade ago SilverStripe became a member of Wellington’s Creative HQ business incubator.

"Silverstripe emerged from Creative HQ which is a key component of the region's Economic Development Strategy, and is another success in the digital realm for our Smart Capital,” says Jo Coughlan, Economy Portfolio Leader.

SilverStripe developed the SilverStripe open source CMS. With this system, they build websites and applications for government organisations, businesses and non-profit organisations in New Zealand and Australia.

Another New Zealand company, Revera, with its Head Office in Wellington, is working with SilverStripe to provide the platform.

The software platform is managed by SilverStripe and supported and used by a large international community. The CMS has been downloaded more than 520,000 times and counts about 5,500 active members from around the world.

“Wellington is the IT and digital capital of New Zealand and it’s great to see the Government showing confidence in our companies. We are able to compete with the best in the world,” says Cr Coughlan.

“Whilst we have a world class public service, SilverStripe's success is example of another world class businesses operating from Wellington. Our Economic Development strategy aims for 10,000 jobs for Wellington – this is another progressive step. Wellington is open for business,” she says.

Wellington City Council also has a good reputation for making its civic data freely available, resulting in new applications such as WatchMyStreet.

http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/strategies/pdfs/digital-strategy.pdf
or http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/strategies/pdfs/digital-strategy.rtf
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