Infineer gone bang?

[sahmeepee]

Infineer have been purchased by Emos, please see this post as they are now trading again.

 

Can anyone on here corroborate a rumour we heard that our cashless catering supplier, Infineer, has gone into receivership?

 

Their website still looks the same, but the phone is not being answered. Another supplier is phoning around trying to hoover up business at the moment.

 

We don't currently need them for any part of normal operations, but obviously there are going to be problems if we have an ePoS unit fail which sadly does happen once every few months.

Edited March 4, 2010 by ZeroHour

[Burt]

We have just been informed by County Hall that this is the case...

[dskinz]

Advertising deleted Edited August 28, 2009 by MkII
Advertising without permission

[TechMonkey]

Oppps, yep just had the email too. Looks like I am going to be taking a crash course in cashless systems then.

 

@Burt: Do you manage your system? If so is it fairly straight forward to load in the new info?

[gfaloon]

yip a lot of us in the same boat...sinking faster now that infineer has gone.

 

we managed to get some totally blank cards via a former employee...but there is no support out there.

[Burt]

@TechMonkey

 

Yes. We are on Midas. We only switched over at Easter so still getting used to it...Not loaded new Year 7's on yet - gulp! Worst case scenario will have to load them 1 by 1!

[AHeighton]

Hi, we're in the same boat. Luckily I managed to stay in touch with one of the support engineers, Adam. He's a nice chap and seemed genuinely concerned that schools would be stuck without the company backup. He phoned me up on my personal mobile, from his personal mobile, to check we'd be alright to start the new term. Luckily, we are, for now.

 

I'm trying to come up with a private support arrangement, where we pay him for support as he knows it better than anyone else. I think that might be a good way forward for anyone else stuck in a supportless-situation too. I don't know how that will work yet because quite simply it's not been decided, but I'll keep you informed.

 

As for now, I am happy for any network admins to contact me at the school if you're stuck. I'm sure we can work something out between us to keep our heads above water.

 

We spent £13k on our new tills and revaluation machines under 6 months ago so, needless to say, we don't want to dump them in favour of the competition any time soon. I can say from personal experience that the tills and revaluation machines they provide are pretty good spec windows machines capable running software from the majority of the competition, so if you are quoting for jumping ship, don't be persuaded to dump your tilt-screen tills and touch-screen revaluation units for the competition's on grounds of speed, you don't need to.

 

Adam was not sure whether the company would be bought out and rescued and I hope for his sake at least that it is. He did a good job. I honestly didn't see this fold coming, I thought they'd be pretty solid.

 

Will keep in touch,

 

Alex Heighton

IT Network Manager

Bushloe High School, Wigston, Leicestershire

[sahmeepee]

From what I've learnt since my post on the 26th I'd agree with everything that's been said above. It seems there is still a reasonable possibility of a buyout.

 

Luckily the database is fairly straightforward so it can be hacked about if needs be. We've been with Infineer for years and have just about every version of their kit including rubbish old serial tills talking to Chipnet, so if any is struggling with technical stuff feel free to PM me.

 

For now I think I might take an image of a working till as a backup against one having a disk failure. If we get any more serious hardware failures it's going to be expensive to dig ourselves out and with 10 tills doing 1000s of transactions a day we can't really afford much downtime!

 

If the buyout doesn't happen and the company vanishes it might be worth some of us pooling our resources/knowledge so that we can support the system until we can work something else out. A wiki maybe?

[AHeighton]

Managed to speak to Adam today, his advice was to take an image of a working till if you can do. Hard disks do fail and, at the moment, nobody can reinstall the software for you. If you have an image of a working till, at least you'd have something to fall back on.

 

Personally, I think there will be something happening with Infineer, whether it's a buyout of the entire company or just parts. In all honesty I don't think anybody knows and it's a case of "watch this space".

 

I have a ghost boot cd I use for taking images of working machines. It's made using the tools at NetBootDisk.com - The Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk for M$ Networks and a version of Norton Ghost 8.2, it works pretty well. email me at the school if you need help making one - "aheighton" is the start of the address and then "bushloe.leics.sch.uk" is the end.

 

Wishing everyone the best of luck keeping things ticking along,

 

Alex Heighton

[Burt]

Does anyone know please how to stop the Midas web interface from timing out every 20 minutes?

[paulhunter]

I had worked for Infineer for 25 years, I am putting a team together to help support anyone with problems both hardware and software, Adam is helping along with helpdesk and software people.

If anyone needs support contact me via my email [email protected].

 

There is support out there.

I am also talking to a company about taking over full support of Chipnet and MIDAS sites.

 

Good luck to all.

 

Paul

[bdonnelly]

The exact situation is that the doors are closed at Infineer's offices, staff are finding other jobs, the administrator is meeting with interested parties this week.Meanwhile some companies are scratching around the market trying to make a quick buck on service with no access to new replacement parts or any idea of the short or long term future of Infineer products ( which looks bleak at the moment)Plus there is no support from the manufacturer who doesn't exist in any meaningful way as things stand. [email protected]

[exinfineer_2008]

I have heard about a couple of companies that are trying to support INFINEER equipment but most of them I would say are trying to gain trust and will probably be looking at the longer picture for upgrading sites. Dont know who the magna Carta chap is but I have been told by some INFINEER customers that they are claiming to support INFINEER products dont know if that is true or not.

 

 

I am sure we will all know what is happening soon. It couldnt of happened at a worst time for the eductaion customers but for the employees any time was not a good time.

 

Good luck to all.

Edited September 9, 2009 by exinfineer_2008

[dskinz]

Any Infineer engineers will always be welcome to apply for positions with my company.

[exinfineer2007]

Doors back open at Infineer on Monday.....!!!

[exinfineer_2008]

I have heard that EMOS Information Systems have taken over the assets of INFINEER. Was talking to one INFINEER chap who said there have been a number of employees taken on by EMOS for support mostly. This could be a good move as I remember EMOS having quite a few engineers spread out across England which could only mean extra support. Hopefully it won’t be too hard to get things back up and running again for the people that are left with the job of getting things back on track.

 

Hope everything goes according to plan with the change. Sounds good.

[sahmeepee]

I have also heard from an ex-Infineer EMOS employee that Infineer's assets have been bought up by EMOS. Most Infineer customers will be getting a call in the next week or so offering them support contracts. Obviously EMOS won't be taking on Infineer's liabilities (i.e. existing support contracts) so you'd have to stump up again, but realistically it's that or go it alone - it depends how much you need them I suppose.

 

I'm still not sure where that will leave us on the software front. Presumably we are licensed to run the software on as many terminals as we had with Infineer, regardless of whether we replace an existing Infineer till with some other XP touchscreen device. We have the Flytech/MiniPOS tills with "POS Terminal" on a label below the screen - drivers available if anyone needs them!

 

If anyone is looking to sell any Flytech tills, let me know - their internal PSUs are very prone to failure and I've got a broken one sat next to me right now. I have the service manual, but they are a bit of a git to get into and I'm not sure the PSU will be easy to source.

[paulhunter]

Anyone needing information about the takeover off Infineer, check out the Infineer website.

[ZeroHour]

Hi

Just to say we just got contacted by Emos who purchased Infineer. He attached this message:

-----------

On 14th Aug 2009 Infineer closed its doors and ceased trading. The business was placed in administration with Moore Stephens (chartered accountants) Belfast.

If you type infineer into a search engine your article with the damaging title appears in the front page.

The residual assets including outstanding debts stocks and Intellectual property rights of Infineer were purchased by Emos Information Systems Ltd on Wednesday 16th Sept 2009.

 

Emos has been operating in the UK for 26 years and group turnover for the last year (31/3/2009) was £3.34m with an operating profit of £224k for the same period.

 

Emos employs 45 people including 6 field service engineers all based in mainland UK.

 

In Northern Ireland, Emos have employed key staff members of Infineer to enable the continued support and continuous development of Infineer products and services.

 

You will be able to contact us via the [email protected] email address or the existing Infineer land line contact numbers.

 

If you wish to contact Emos Information Systems our registered address is as below

 

EMOS Information Systems Ltd

The Lennox

Lennox road

Basingstoke

Hampshire

RG22 4AP

Registered in England No. 1743307

 

Your co-operation would be much appreciated.

 

{removed}

Sales and Marketing Admin

Emos- Infineer

 

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So it looks like they may be back.

 

EDIT: just realised this has been said.

[frosty]

So it looks like they may be back.

 

 

Back with a vengeance I would say. Can't fault them in fact.