Identitas AG, the year 2009 shortly

In 2009, its 10th successful financial year, Identitas AG decided to renew the software of the Animal Traffic Data Base entirely. For the first time all tasks – from the concept via the programming until to the operational planning - are managed by own teams. The new Animal Traffic Data Base will be more integrably co-ordinated to the administration processes and will be more open to further animal kinds. We will be able to offer better and technically meaningful instruments and services to fulfil the respective tasks and desires to animal holders, authorities, industry and interested persons. The introduction is planned for 2011.

The project Anicalc – the application to supply the whole majority cattle unit of a farm as a base to calculate the cattle-referred direct payments – had the greatest importance for the animal holders. By Anicalc, the data at a deadline are extracted of the Animal Traffic Data Base, elaborated and made available for the clearing house. Especially fastidious were next to the big data set the brief schedule and the adjustment to the processes in the cantons. The premiere was successful, and we already work at an extension in form of a majority cattle unit-referred calculator that indicates the current majority cattle unit at each time.

Only for the second time, the stays on the Alps had to be announced. This significant Animal Traffic could be registrated nearly smoothly by the experi-ence of the year before and the so-called "Gefäss" (container). The availability of the Animal Traffic Data Base and the accessibility of our Help Desk were very high during the whole year.

The new trading platform ViehNet could be handed over to the project partner graubündenVIEH AG as intended. Another aim is to improve Labelbase.

To assure and improve our quality the audits to certificate the IT basic protection and to certificate ISO 27001 were accomplished and the corresponding requests were submitted.

In 2009 the turnover decreased by Fr. 1'482'000 in comparison to the year before and proves Fr. 13'130'000. Identitas can prove a benefit of Fr. 66'900 for the passed financial year. The significant improvement of the result compared with the year before is due to the good financial result.

On 6th May 2010, the shareholders of Identitas AG approved the business report and the annual account 2009. Mr. Peter Hinder, Micarna SA, was elected as a new member of the board of directors to replace Mr. Albert Baumann, member of the board of directors since the beginning of Identitas AG.

Business Report 2009

10 Year Celebration Ceremony 2009

After her 10th general meeting, Identitas AG invited guests, employees and their families to a party at the Old Quarry (Steigrübli) in Ostermundigen.



The 25m high faces of the former sandstone quarry lent an extraordinary ambiance to the event. The evening started with greetings from the public and private sides of agri-culture in Switzerland. Manfred Bötsch, director of Department of Agriculture, spoke first and he was followed by Rolf Büttiker, Ständerat and president of the Swiss Meat Association.
Identitunes, a band formed by Identitas employees, provided the musical highlight of the evening. The unseasonly cold, wet weather was unable to dampen the mood of the crowd as they cheered and sung along to the music. Tonight was the band's debut and they were enthusiastically received.



A fine buffet was followed by the play, ‘Q=(KUH)’ and was performed in the old quarry itself by the players of the Madame Bissegger company. The play stars the cow ‘Tulpe’ (Tulip), a star of whom we feel a certain amount of responsibility, and is set in remotest Emmental with a cast of quirky characters who are very familiar to us all.
The play was most enjoyable and after a fortifying coffee to protect us against the rain, we all left for home. Which play, I wonder, will Madame Bissegger be playing in 10 years’ time?

We are pleased to introduce our new development team to you

From left to right:
Gustavo Pérez Léon, Peter Bruins, Paul Böhringer, Kaspar Vogel, Michel Barras and Thomas Arnold

We welcome the new team to Identitas AG. The members, lead by Peter Bruins, are all .Net developers and the experience they bring with them is broad. Their first project is the development of a system, which has been specified by the Project department in Identitas AG.

We expect our inhouse development department to respond more quickly and more efficiently to customer's queries.

We wish our new colleagues much joy and satisfaction with their work at Identitas AG.

Ten Years ago

On February 11, 1999, the companies register of canton Bern brought a new firm by the name of 'Tierverkehrsdatenbank' [Animal Traffic Database] into existence. The company's aims, as stated, are:
"to institute and run an electronic database together with the federal government as well to offer relevant services at the most reasonable prices. The central database serves the organisation and allocation of eartags in order to identify animals. Especially they make available technical help for the registration of births and movement of cloven-hoofed animals as well as the implementation of the necessary reports. The database is open for other uses;".

In the last 10 years, the company has remained true to the afore-mentioned aims. 2 people started in 1999 and this number has risen today to 70. From the first calf in the year 2000, 'Alpha' until today the histories of over 10 million cattle have been stored. The significance and importance of the Animal Traffic Database is without doubt.
Over the last 10 years the firm has seen changes to personnel, the name has been changed to 'Identitas AG' and is continuously improving and taking on new tasks. The fundamental concepts remain as does the joy in offering good products.

With 10 years behind us, there is no reason to rest on our laurels, merely to briefly pause before setting forth into the future. On the occasion of the General Meeting on June 19, 2009, Identitas AG will celebrate the jubilee with shareholders, guests and employees.

Labelbase - Major Upgrade brings new Features

Labelbase tracks and manages animals in Swiss Integrated Production [IP] schemes such as IP-Suisse, Coop Naturafarm and QMSF. New features were added at the end of January 2009 to Labelbase [www.labelbase.ch]. Amongst the improvements and changes that were made are:

Eartag Ordering System
Authorised users now have an entire menu of options at their disposal when ordering eartags. IP-eartags can now be ordered for other animals in addition to the usual ones for cattle and pigs. In contrast to standard single-coloured eartag, IP-eartags have two colours and this allows IP-animals to be more easily recognised.
Orders can be made at any time. All of the eartag-orders that the user has made within the past three months are shown onscreen. Within this timeframe, the user can make changes as necessary.

Documentation
The extensive feedback and constructive criticism from users has lead to an improvement in the accompanying documentation:
• The IP-animal in the stall must be labelled in addition to having the information required by law. As a consequence the transparency will be greatly increased.
• The registrations of animals' entries and departures to and from farms are now handled faster.

With these steps, Labelbase has been made considerably more user-friendly. The next upgrade is set for early summer 2009.

S2-Challenge

On August 30, Identitas AG took part in the S2-Challenge, with two 5-man teams entered in the mixed-category. The S2-Challenge is a multi-sport relay race involving the disciplines of swimming, cycling, running & cross-country biking. It takes the teams over 150km and up 2,500m on the route from Langnau through the Emmental and Mittelland all the way down to Schwarzenburg.

Inspired by the scores of onlookers along the various routes as well as in the changeover areas, over 1,300 amateur- and top-athletes expressed their joy in sport. The gorgeous environment, the fine weather as well as that great feeling that one, as a team, has overcome a challenge, made this event an exceptional event.

 www.s2-challenge.ch

New Eartag-Supplier

The French company Allflex won the open tender in 2007 for eartag-production for Switzerland and is the world's largest producer of eartags. Caisley, the previous producer of the Swiss eartags, ceased delivery at the end of June 2008.

Along with the production of eartags for cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and deer, Allflex's service package includes laser-marking, the picking and the sending of the eartags to the farmers. This package makes Allflex Identitas AG's biggest supplier.

Since the beginning of the year, Allflex have been delivering the relevant industry sample-eartags in the battle to eradicate Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD). This collaboration can continue successfully with the planned conversion.

4-year Mediamatics-apprenticeship comes to an end

At the end of June Serge Frei passed his Berufsmatura and attained his apprenticeship exams in Mediamatics (grade 5.2). To this was added his IPA-dissertation, which earned him the excellent grade of 5.8. We congratulate him on his impressive performance.

The study of mediamatics includes commercial practice, as well as the IT-fields of programming, design and multimedia. Apprentices in mediamatics spend 2 years learning fundamentals at BiCT AG. Their final 2 years are then spent in a company, where they direct their widely diversified skills towards preparing for future careers.

Identitas AG participates in the Swiss Company Run

After the accomplishments of last year, the Identitas AG team took part for the third time in the Swiss Company Run on July 9, 2008 in Bern. The 6½ km-long track takes one through the Bremgarten forest. Their real competitive spirit (complete with goose-bumps) ultimately saw them through to the finishing in the stadium in Neufeld.

The Swiss Company Run aims to promote health, strengthen the team-spirit as well as increase one's motivation — all values which Identitas AG subscribes to.

7 people from Identitas took up the challenge and were justly rewarded with second place in the category, ‚Most Motivated Institution'. Overall the team came in 13th out of 44 places.

Short-term Increase in Personnel

In the past 3 months, our help-desk at the Tierverkehrsdatenbank [Swiss Animal-Tracking Data-base] has been inundated with calls. We've received more than ever before. The men and women staffing the Help-Desk receive as many as 1,700 calls daily. The new obligation to register summering animals coupled with the many queries from livestock owners has lead to these peaks.

In order to handle the increase in calls, Identitas AG has 9 short-term, part-time vacancies (the equivalent of 5 full-time posts) at the Help-Desk. The work is primarily administrative. By lifting the burden from those giving telephone-support, we can ensure a greater availability to those seeking support. Those unable to wait for telephone-support sent their request by e-mail to the Help-Desk and, as a consequence, the number of incidents reported in June 2008 rose to 20,000. This is 2.5 times higher than the June of the previous year.

Reporting Help Desk

Identitas AG — Year 2007 in Brief

The Management of Identitas AG concentrated in 2007 upon the consolidation of the company and the separation of the State- and private- applications.

The separation of the established labelling-product from the government's TVD [Animal-Tracing Database] and the assembly of our own label-application under the name "Labelbase" required the dismantling of the existing labelling-interface and the development of a new product.

We began the formation of a product-management team in the middle of 2007 in order to better direct the increasing number of Identitas products and in order to be able to develop them further. Project-management operated at full capacity on account of the projects from the Swiss government, the take-over of AGIS' master-data, the over-summering-data from 2008 as well as the formation of the Labelbase project.

We have also invested heavily in our IT-infrastructure. 41 servers have been combined in a new, highly-available, easily-maintainable server platform. In the same project, our SAN [Storage Area Network] has been newly re-organised so that 3.6 million files can be efficiently and safely stored in 1.64 terabytes of storage space.

The turnover for 2007, in comparison with the previous year, dropped by CHF 403,000 to CHF 10,326,000. Thanks to reductions in expenses for materials, services and personnel, the company performed 18% better than in the pre-vious year. However, on account of the competitive situation in the jobs market, there are still vacancies to be filled in IT and in the helpdesk.

The average number of jobs in 2007 fell by 0.2 to 41.0 full-time positions. The average age of the workforce was comparatively low at 34.8 years and the percentage of women is comparatively high at 52%. The company continues to invest in the further education of her employees. Identitas AG is training two apprentices, currently in their 3rd and 4th year, in the field of Mediamatics - a convergent study in electronic media, telecommunications and IT.

On May 8 the shareholders of Identitas AG approved the Annual Report and the accounts for 2007. The Board of Directors for the period 2008-2010 were also appointed and they are:

- Arbeitsgemeinschaft Schweiz. Rinderzüchter (ASR) [Swiss Cattlebreeders Group], Hans Künzi, President of the Board of Directors
- Micarna AG, Albert Baumann, Vice-President of the Board of Directors
- Bell AG, Josef Dähler
- Gesellschaft Schweizerischer Tierärzte (GST) [Swiss Veterinary Society], Charles Trolliet
- Suisseporcs, Dr. Felix Grob
- Schweizer Fleisch-Fachverband SFF [Swiss Meat Trade Association], Martin Schwander
- Schweizerischer Viehhändler-Verband [Swiss Cattle-Dealer Association], Max Fehr
- Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft [Swiss Government], Jacques Chavaz
- Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft [Swiss Government], Hans Wyss

SMS Service for community citizens

Identitas Inc. offers to community administrations a short message service to informe their citizens about important dates (garbage removal, events, community meetings, ...).

For more information goto ID-products/9968.SMS.Service

Identitas meets the Gigathlon challange

From july 12th to july 14th an Identitas-team participate at the Gigathlon 2007 competition. The race goes from Interlaken over the Grimsel Pass, down the Valais to the Lake of Geneva and back to Bern by cycling, running, mountinbiking, swimming and inlineing. (613 km and 11'000 m of elevation gain).
The team will prove that teamplay, endurance and performance are skills with are essential both in sports and on job.

9968.SMS.Service

The introduction of the SMS service in the market has succeeded. The present customers are contented with the equipment and the controll of the SMS service.

Swissski has concluded the ski season and has confirmed that of the SMS services arrived safely at the different ski clubs.

The “Swiss land youth” uses service for the cantonal groups and as a short info system of the Swiss board of directors of the “land youth”.

The confederate women's wrestling federation EFSV has furnished recently a service. It is planned to send swinging party results and federation news to the suitable categories.

The known Schuetzenhouse (Wangen a. A) uses the SMS service with main focus SMS-Voting - practically was used with a choice of " for the nicest physical talent ".

Further different small clubs and private allowed to provide the news service.

More information can you see here

NEWS.SMS.Service - exactly to the goal

The Identitas Corporation operates an NEWS.SMS.Service. With this system can you send club news, class infos, event infos and a lot more by SMS. The free aid makes easier the communication in associations or clubs at all levels. Simply and quick as a flash this SMS.Service brings all important infos on schedule in their purpose. The SMS can be dispatched via web-form (For free) or on mobile phone (20 centime). Each he subscribes service (START NEWS "Keyword") receives the topical news.

The Identitas Corp. offers apprenticeships for young mediamaticiens

Middle of july, the 20 years old Martin Pfister finished successfully his apprenticeship as a mediamaticien. He is one of the first persons running through the four years lasting program. The Identitas Corp. congratulates to this success.
In the meantime 18 years old Serge Frei started the third year of apprenticeship at the firm. Per year the Identitas Corp. offers a place for an apprentice in his third and fourth year of mediamaticien education each.

Two teams at the Gigathlon 06

On the 8 of July the Gigathlon takes place 2006.
In the disciplines racing cycle, Mountainbike, swimming, Inlineskating and running, leads the distance by the law and the (Seeland) sea-country of Geneva via La Chaux de fonds to Berne. (339 km, 4420 m hp). The TVD and the Identitas participate with one Group of 5 People each in this perseverance cause. Teamwork, readiness to perform and holding out will are characteristics are characteristics, which want the participation in occupation and sport to express.

From Animal Tracing Database Corp. to Identitas Corp.

The 1st of January 2006 the Animal Tracing Database Corp. has changed her name to Identitas Corp. The company witch has specialised in the development and operation of database-supported traceability solutions will extend business beyond the agricultural sphere. There is no change for farmers and slaughterhouses. The name Animal Tracing Database will be used as a brand for this database. For questions about the Animal Tracing Database call the Helpdesk at 031 996 81 22.