A NEW software firm based in the South has invested £500,000 to set up and operate its research and development office in York, it was announced today.

Pierbridge Ltd, of Chobham, Surrey, offers relatively inexpensive solutions to small or medium-sized ventures which need to fuse customer data from different sources such as phone, e-mail or even palmtop communicators into a single view on screen.

With the help of York Inward Investment Board, Pierbridge has now found development offices at the Innovation Centre at York Science Park.

Tony Russell, the firm's marketing director, said the new office had now begun with a development team of four "but our plan is to employ up to 20 programmers and web developers in York over the next two years."

He said the attractions of York as a Science City was one of the reasons it split its activities between Chobham and the Innovation Centre. "But our key players lived in North Yorkshire, and did not want to move. It was a case of the southern mountain going to the northern Mohammed."

There were no immediate plans to transfer Chobham operations to York "but these are matters which we will keep under review, " he said. Mark Newburn, the Pierbridge technical director who lives in North Yorkshire, said: "I wanted to be in York because it's easy to attract people to work here. Also it was incredibly easy to move into the Innovation Centre, a process which took place within a week. And we have ADSL connections which we need for our high-speed telecommunications requirements."

The firm's main product is the XeRM Suite software designed to work "straight out of the box". It uses an internet browser to solve the frustration of holding vital information in different and separate databases and drastically reduces the cost of gathering information for use.

The arrival of Pierbridge builds on last year's successes by the York Inward Investment Board.

Of 23 companies lured to the city by the IIB, 13 were e-science related ventures, including Aurega, the Siemens subsidiary software designers in Fulford Road, Scotland-based Access Computing at York Business Park, Lexicle the natural-language processing firm at the Innovation Centre and the DAT Group, the Oxfordshire-based mobile solutions provider which moved into Stonebow House.

Dave Taylor, York IIB's marketing director said: "We were pleased to find Pierbridge a suitable environment for its development office. The company has a great product which will drive down the cost of customer relationship management to an acceptable level for any organisation."

Ray Wynne, business promoter for Science City York, said: "Pierbridge's presence will add to the skills base and further broaden the software capabilities available in the city."

Updated: 08:57 Tuesday, January 15, 2002