Australian business rules and decision support software developer, RuleBurst, has assumed the mantle of its previous incarnation, Softlaw, which was delisted from the ASX in February this year.

 According to a company statement, the name change reflects RuleBurst's concerted effort to focus on its customers needs to provide business rule management which goes beyond the legal policy management provided by Softlaw.

With the name change announcement, RuleBurst also announced the availability of its new product of the same name, RuleBurst 7.0. RuleBurst's technology and methods is designed to free up policy owners to draft and test policy and legislative rules in Microsoft Word. The rules can be drafted, tested in real-time and deployed rapidly without having to engage specialist IT programming or coding personnel.

The new incarnation of the rebirthed company follows a makeover in 2004, which saw RuleBurst receive a $4.13 million grant in April last year from AusIndustry to help it to develop its technology platform.

Surend Dayal was appointed CEO of RuleBurst in late 2004 after returning to Australia from the UK where he was general manager of RuleBurst's European office. Dayal is a Barrister of the Supreme Court of NSW and has written several text books on computers and law, which are used by Australian Universities.

Dayal said, "RuleBurst aims to help organisations better integrate policy development with administration in order to reduce policy implementation times, without compromising the integrity and accuracy of the information.

"Business rules help organisations to prove compliance with government policies or industry regulations by being able to provide an audit trail of procedures and changes to those procedures, helping organisations to keep on the right side of the law."

RuleBurst was established as Softlaw in 1989 and has offices in Canberra, Sydney, London and Washington DC. Its current Australian customers include, Department of Defence, Department of Veteran's Affairs, Queensland Department of Housing, NSW Premier's Department, Centrelink, The Treasury and The Board of Taxation.