Kainos scoops major prize at IM2001 awards in London

In the Business to Consumer (B2C) Project category Kainos was awarded top honours for its work on PropertyNews.com, one of the largest property portal sites in the UK and Ireland.

Being nominated as a finalist in four specific categories, Kainos demonstrated its capability to meet the extensive criteria for evaluation which includes the delivery of significant and definable business benefits, innovation and originality, and project management issues such as delivery on time and within budget.

Kainos beat off competition from Abbey National, B&Q and Great Universal (GUS) Home Shopping among others to take first prize.

Congratulating the development team, Managing Director of Kainos, Brendan Mooney said: “Having developed and hosted one of the busiest websites in Northern Ireland, we are delighted to receive due recognition for our efforts. This site has been phenomenally successful with over 6 million hits per month.

“It has been designed with ease of use and speed of access foremost in mind, and has coped with a five-fold increase in usage since the site went live in September 2000 without a diminution in service to the user.”

PropertyNews.com is a joint venture between Kainos and Northern Ireland-based publishing firm Inhouse Publications.

Stephen McVittie, the Kainos Director on the PropertyNews.com Board, said: “This award is of particular significance to us as it represents not just a technology solution but a new trading model for Kainos in terms of a joint venture between a technology company and a content provider.”

The property portal has quickly become one of the most visited web sites in Northern Ireland, serving over 1,000,000 page views and 250,000 property brochures per month to a global user base. The web site now hosts in excess of 90 per cent of the Estate Agents in Northern Ireland and neighbouring counties and boasts in excess of 85 per cent of all residential property for sale or to rent in that region.

The 2001 award follows last year’s competition when Kainos won awards in six separate categories. In addition, Kainos' sister company, Meridio took the top 2001 award in the Content and Document Management category.

The IM Awards are the premier UK awards for the recognition of excellence and innovation in the management of business information and knowledge. (MB)