Impatex takes NetFreight to the cloud

   The U.K.-based supplier of customs software Impatex said Friday that its Web-based freight management and customs processing package NetFreight is now available in the cloud, following an alliance with freight industry hardware specialist Albacore Systems.
   NetFreight, launched in 2005 and acquired by Impatex in 2007, was designed as a browser-based system, operating either on a user’s in-house server, or on an external, hosted server.
   “In practice, most NetFreight users have so far opted for in-house installations, in order to avoid potential problems over connections between their ISPs and the various port and airport community systems, and because of concerns over external hosts’ system reliability,” the company said.
   With the new tie-up, Albacore will provide a hosting package for NetFreight customers on its own dedicated high-security servers.
   “Most of our NetFreight customers currently run the program from their own in-house servers,” said Impatex Managing Director Peter Day. “This means they are denied a major benefit – the inherent location-independence of NetFreight, which offers added security and reliability when hosted remotely.”
   “We already provide and maintain the hardware for many NetFreight customers, so providing them with cloud servers is a logical progression in our service offering, and an extension of the strong working relationship which has existed between Impatex and ourselves for 20 years,” said Cliff Atkinson, managing director of Albacore. – Eric Johnson