Annova, the German mediatech firm acquired by specialist IT group SCISYS earlier this year, has landed its second major contract in just over two weeks.
Chippenham-based SCISYS paid €11.35m (£10.45m) upfront in cash for Munich-based Annova in January.
Earlier this month it secured a €2.5m deal involving the complete renewal of an unnamed German broadcaster’s existing editorial newsroom systems using its ground-breaking proprietary OpenMedia next-generation editorial newsroom platform.
Now it has landed a €800,000 deal with German public broadcaster ARD-aktuell to develop a cross-media planning portal for its national prime news programmes based on Annova’s product OpenMedia Newsboard, which extends the research capability of previous OpenMedia platforms, giving journalists a powerful web-based tool that covers the entire World Wide Web and social media networks. 
Earlier this month the BBC also announced that following the success of live pilots of OpenMedia, it is to be rolled out across the corporation.
OpenMedia, which is already used by around 10,000 journalists in newsrooms worldwide, streamlines workflows across TV, radio and online. The off-the-shelf system brings together huge amounts of content produced on laptops, tablets and mobiles as well as in the studio, making it easier to share content across a range of platforms.
Work will start next month on the ARD-aktuell contract and continue for around one and a half years. It will include journalists working on the network’s flagship Tagesschau evening news programme.
SCISYS CEO Klaus Heidrich said: “Congratulations to ANNOVA for this second excellent contract win this month. It is testament to Annova’s ability to set trends with its innovative OpenMedia product, as well as the team’s ability to win new business from new and established customers alike.
“The innovative OpenMedia Newsboard module opens up a raft of new opportunities, including joint solutions which further integrate OpenMedia and SCISYS Media & Broadcast’s own dira! product.
"I am delighted to announce this strategic win as evidence of the additional momentum that SCISYS is gaining with its activities in the media and broadcast sector."
Annova chief executive officer Michael Schueller added: “This great success demonstrates our position as thought leaders and our consistent ability to succeed in a highly competitive market.
“Talking to the customer, we believe that its decision was driven by a combination of our innovative technical solution, competitive price and, importantly, by the sustainable strategic approach we are taking.
“It will be a great pleasure to further extend our long-term cooperation with this important customer. Our solution is expected to deliver a significant increase in efficiency when it comes to editorial news planning and creation across different media platforms. We are looking for this to become an exemplar project for other broadcasters.”
SCISYS employs nearly 450 staff across its offices in Chippenham, Bristol, Leicester and Reading and two in Germany supplying bespoke software systems, and IT-based support services to the space, government, defence and environment sectors.
