INTERNATIONAL TRADE : FileNet to Sign Pact With Hungarian Distributor Today

FileNet Corp., a Costa Mesa manufacturer of computerized document imaging and storage systems, will make its first foray into Eastern Europe when it signs a distributorship agreement with a Hungarian software developer Friday.

The Budapest company, Computer Media Corp., has paid $250,000 for a FileNet system. Zsolt Gerl, Computer Media’s president and chief executive, said this will be the first system of its kind in Hungary. The company plans to adapt the system to the Hungarian language.

FileNet’s systems are used to automate paperwork by converting paper documents to computerized images stored in optical disks. Those images can then be moved to individual workstations for viewing or editing. FileNet’s customers are primarily banks, insurance companies and government agencies. After the Persian Gulf War, FileNet sold $3 million worth of imaging systems to Kuwait.

Gerl said he expects orders from a Hungarian government agency and a private bank in the first half of 1992.

Dennis L. Bress Sr., FileNet’s director of international sales, said he anticipates sales of at least $1 million from the deal in 1992.

Hungary is considered to have some of Eastern Europe’s best-trained engineers and computer programmers, Bress added. That could be an advantage in marketing the systems in Hungary, because technicians could quickly learn the system and adapt it for their needs, he said. Through the Hungarian distributor, FileNet hopes to sell the systems elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

Bress said FileNet tried without success for 18 months to find a distributor in the former Soviet Union, but none could pay for the system in hard currency.

In contrast, “I spent less than four months working with Computer Media and they not only sent people here for training but they’ve transferred the entire money for the system in advance last month,” he said.