VideoFinally, in April 1996, Computer Associates abandoned the joint strategy with Masterpiece, when it spun off Accpac International as an independent business unit and even hired back some of the product's original developers. (Another independent business unit, Prestige Software International, was spun off to take over development of Masterpiece.) There had been only one new version of Accpac released in the three years prior to the spin-off, but three new releases of Accpac for Windows were released in the 18 months after the deal.
Accpac has strong international features, according to Charles Chewning. "They have a very loyal user base, and their strength is their operations in other countries. They virtually own Canada and South Africa," he says. However, because of the delays caused by the Masterpiece strategy, Accpac does not have all the functionality of some of its international competitors. "Accpac is a step below Navision, Scala, and SunSystems [Systems Union]," says Chewning. "It's not as robust as those systems." (Scala and Systems Union are listed in CFO's February buyer's guide to high-end systems.)
Navision Financials, from Denmark-based Navision Software a/s, is another system spanning the gap between the high-end and midrange buyer's guides in terms of capability. Navision has considerable international presence, being heavily installed throughout Europe, with additional installations in Asia and the Pacific Rim. The company has been marketing the product in the United States since 1994; some analysts put Navision in the top echelon of midrange accounting systems, along with Platinum, Great Plains, Solomon, and State of the Art.
Navision's strength and weakness is its development language, C/SIDE, which users employ to customize the software. In contrast, Solomon, Great Plains, and other vendors use Visual Basic as a customization language. Many users prefer Visual Basic because it's a general-purpose Microsoft tool, and programmers are widely available. However, C/SIDE is designed specifically for customizing Navision.
"It's very flexible, and enables the reseller to customize the package very quickly," says Steven Gray. "But the language is proprietary and has limited distribution in the U.S., so Navision might have service problems."
More distinctions: Macola, Cyma, and RealWorld
For years, Macola's distinction was that it sold just about the only midrange accounting package that offered a suite of manufacturing and distribution modules. Now Macola has more competition in this respect, thanks to Platinum's aforementioned acquisition of FocusSoft, and to the efforts of vendors like Great Plains and Solomon to market third-party manufacturing software.
However, "most midrange accounting packages don't go very far" in these respects, points out Chewning. "Even Macola is really best suited for a single-site manufacturing environment, since there's no logistics. When you get to multiple sites, then you have to go to a high-end system."
Cyma Systems Inc. recently took the rather drastic step of reducing its product prices by 60 percent. Cyma IV has a suite of financial modules--general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll--and the entire suite can now be purchased for around $2,000, making it one of the lowest-priced LAN-based systems on the market. "There's a vacuum in the market for reasonably priced, full-featured accounting software, and we're going to fill that vacuum," says Steve Brueckner, vice president of marketing.
The price cut was necessary, according to Chewning. "Cyma is a small company with a good product," he says, "but not differentiated enough to sell a lot. They needed a product where there's less competition and less demand for functionality."
RealWorld obtained its Visual Accounting suite by acquiring Intellisoft in 1995, giving the old-line RealWorld and its thousands of customers a new, innovative client/ server accounting system. "RealWorld Visual Accounting doesn't have the visibility of other quality packages," says Needle, "but it's extremely well designed and requires the least hardware resources--a very thin client--to operate of any major Windows accounting system. It has excellent features for fund accounting and solid core modules, but lacks job cost and has no major links to third-party vertical packages."
The system has had a "history of instability," adds Needle, "but the vendor claims the most recent version has cleared up the major problems." The next version of Visual Accounting, which comes out in limited release this month, will support SQL Server and be able to handle electronic commerce over the Internet, according to Michael S. Anctil, manager for market development at RealWorld.
Going to the source: SBT and AccountMate
Most vendors don't supply complete source code to their accounting software, since most users don't need to modify the core functionality of the system. However, SBT and AccountMate have always distinguished themselves by providing the full source code--written in Microsoft's FoxPro--with their systems. Many VARs like these systems because this policy gives them the ability to customize the systems in any way their customers require.
For the past year, AccountMate has been focusing on moving its existing system to an SQL Server platform, including the Microsoft Small Business Server, and strengthening its offering on other platforms, which include IBM's AS/400. "We now have products on multiple platforms, all with the same user and interface and functionality," says company president Ben Tse. "We believe that's a distinct advantage. This allows the user to grow from one platform to another, and also move horizontally from one to another platform."
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