A CORK based software company has signed a deal believed to be worth more than £2 million with IBM in the United States.

The deal between Madec Computing Ltd and IBM US is said to be one of the biggest ever achieved by an Irish software company and is expected to lead to more jobs in Madec.

Under an agreement with IBM, the US company will remarket a product designed to help end users get fast access to the IBM AS/400 mainframe in the US and Puerto Rico.

The product, known as Revive, was designed specifically for use with AS/400 mainframes which are commonly used in business.

Madec's managing director, Mr Michael Foley, said that until now users had to rekey information from the AS/400 mainframe on their own PCs.

"Revive helps them access the information much more easily, without having to rekey it," he said.

IBM, which employs 500 people in Ireland, bought the Lotus Development Corporation last year for £2.2 billion.

Mr Foley said Revive was a bridge between AS/400 reports and PC applications such as Lotus 123 and fitted in nicely for IBM. The product also works with Microsoft Excel.

Madec has been making the product since last September and has sold around 100 copies of it.

Mr Foley said the agreement would allow the company to reach a far broader market and achieve a higher volume of sales in the US.

Some 300,000 companies use the AS/400 system, 225,000 of these in the US.

Madec was formed in 1990 by Mr Foley. The company develops software for general use and its clients include the Cork brewery Beamish & Crawford, Pepsi Cola and IDA Ireland.

Madec employs 12 people, but Mr Foley said this was expected to double in the coming months.

The company will open an office in Dublin shortly and all the support services for the product will be based in Ireland.

Mr Foley would not comment on the value of the agreement, which Madec had been negotiating for six months.