Anyway, the software that comes with it is Windows only, and since I upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu, if obviously stopped working. A quick Google didn't show up any data on getting it to work, so I took a punt, and tried it in Wine.
It installed OK, and ran, but couldn't find the USB reader, so some more googling to find out how to map the COMn style ports ID's to the Linux device provided the following information. You need to symbolically link the ~/wine/dosdevices/COM1 port to the /dev/ttyUSB0 device (where the reader hardware appeared when plugged in - check the /dev/ folder for more information). This allows the Windows program running under wine access to the USB reader, and Hey Presto. The software worked!