BEST SPINS OUT DATAFACTION.
Best Software finally got rid of a product instead of buying more as it sold Datafaction, a Los Angeles-based company that specializes in accounting for the entertainment market. Datafaction was bought by Brian Kleinman, its founder and former owner. It was Kleinman who sold his operation to Softline in 1999 as Softline made the first of three purchases in the accounting market in North America. Softline paid roughly $5.46 million for Kleinman's operation (using 1999 exchange rates), and the next year bought AccountMate and BusinessVision. This probably isn't the last divestiture we'll see, as Best simplifies its holdings after a couple of years of buying. Best did not disclose the sale price. Perhaps Kleinman paid in cash and celebrity autographs?

MYOB MERGES WITH SOLUTIONS 6.
Two offshore companies with entries in different parts of the accounting market, MYOB Ltd. and Solutions6, have merged. MYOB US is primarily known for its Macintosh-based accounting systems, the only ones on the market of note. (It does market PC-based versions.) Both companies are based in Australia. MYOB shareholders will own 67 percent of the combined company—they already had 12.7 percent. It will employ 1,000 and have 2004 revenue of just over $129 million. However, while MYOB in the U.S. has a bigger company behind it, Solutions6's Enterprise and Legal Divisions are not part of the deal. That group, which markets products that include the CMS Open practice management system, is being acquired by Francisco Partners. MYOB is looking to grow in the States, according to Chris Lee, executive director of MYOB Ltd. who says that the company is looking to buy, partner, whatever, in the U.S.

NELSON: SMALL VARS HERE TO STAY.
If given the chance to talk frankly with Don Nelson, the executive who was moved from Fargo, N.D., to Redmond, Wash., to help lead the channel for Microsoft Business Solutions, one top MBS VAR said he'd tell Nelson, “ More changes and less ‘crummy' dealers would be a good thing.” If crummy equals small, he's out of luck. Nelson says that the new dealer program going into effect in July means that even one-person reselling shops can find a home. Small businesses buy from small VARs, not from the large dealers, Nelson reasons. Nelson says that MBS has products suited for the small VAR. He must mean something in the future, maybe the fabled Magellan product that is supposed to compete with Intuit, because on the accounting side, there's nothing there--unless, of course, you count Small Business Manager. And we stopped counting that a long time ago. By the way, one MBS VAR said that at the January Business Builder Conference Microsoft pledged essentially that as far as going direct, “we won't do it, unless we tell you first.” The new channel program, Nelson says, should save MBS VARs money on their annual fees and on support. It's also supposed to raise the educational level of the Classic VARs.

RESELLERS OVER THERE.
The last issue of this newsletter mentioned a move to international operations by some of the biggest resellers. One that made the move without a big announcement is InterDyn, the consortium of Great Plains resellers. InterDyn has admitted Touchstone, a large MBS reseller in the United Kingdom. That follows on the opening of a London office by ePartners earlier this year, with up-and-comer Tectura in talks to move onto the continent. The big factor in these moves appears to be Axapta, which John Hendrickson, president of InterDyn, says is suited for large clients with an international presence.

ACCPAC AND CCH, WHO'S ON FIRST?
Two years ago, Accpac rolled out Comprehensive Financial Organizer, an analytical tool that lets users change numbers in financial statements and see how the results ripple through. In March, CCH rolled out ProfitDriver, which does the same thing. That's perhaps not surprising, as both are versions of the same product, the Optimist Professional Series, from InMatrix, an Australian firm. CCH says it has an exclusive license to market the product as ProfitDriver to CPAs, which is interesting given the fact that Accpac has been marketing CFO to CPAs for the past two years. CCH did say that Accpac was there first. I'm not going to figure this one out. CaseWare International, which makes the Working Papers software and markets Idea, entered the market with CaseWare Scenarios after hearing demand for something like CFO. This looks like a hot battleground for the next year or so. Now all we have to do is get CPAs to sell the engagements needed to fix the problems they find!

EXACT BACK ON THE RESELLER TRAIL .
After two years of trimming its channel down to about 75 VARs, Exact North America is now ready to start adding resellers again. David Krapff, the company's vice president of North American sales, says Exact has already added two VARs this year. After the former Macola was acquired by Exact Software, Jim Kent, a former reseller who is now president of Exact North America, decided that too many of the company's resellers sold too little. There were about 200 resellers a couple of years ago and more than 600 in the mid-1990s. Exact is busy training VARs to sell its online eSynergy application, as well as the traditional disk-based Macola.

SAP GOES FOR CPAS.
Somebody has been studying the market. SAP introduced a CPA Advisor program, and it offers free CPE, which is the narcotic of choice for this community. Hey, that gives it a fighting chance. The free program is designed to provide “tools and training on enterprise management software designed exclusively for the SMB market.” It takes three paragraphs in the company press release to mention BusinessOne, the only tool I'm aware of. Sort of sounds like there's more tools to come. The CPA program is free, but it raises the old question of just how valuable these things are. A very astute NetSuite reseller, talking about CPA influence, said it was customers who dragged CPAs kicking and screaming to support QuickBooks, not CPAs who got them to use QuickBooks. CPA programs, he mused, just don't work. Well, it makes some of the vendors feel like they are actually doing something constructive.

SYSPRO'S REVENUE?
When Accounting Technology Senior Editor Richard McCausland wrote about Syspro's channel program in the May issue of the magazine, Syspro told him its most recent annual revenue was $44 million. But the corporate fact sheet posted on Carlton Collin's site at www.accountingsoftwareadvisor.com shows the company reached $52 million in 2000, dropping to $48.4 million in 2001, the last year on that particular document, which has the official Syspro label on it. I sent an inquiry to Syspro's PR person. Haven't heard back.

BEST RENAMES CPAS LINE.
Best Software has renamed the product lines it acquired with its purchase of the former CPASoftware of Pensacola, Fla. CPAS had products named Visual Tax, Visual Practice Management, etc. Now , the line gets the word “manager” displayed prominently, but while keeping the CPA letters very visible. So it's now, CPATax Manager, CPAPractice Manager, and CPAAccounting Manager, for various parts of the line. The avowed strategy for Best is to behave as its parent Sage does in the rest of the word—operating in both the VAR market and in the public accounting space. Best says the name changes better illustrate the products' functionality.

TAYLOR EXITS EPICOR FOR MBS.
When Epicor revamped its channel management a few months ago, Arleigh Taylor, reportedly a VAR favorite, returned to the company. A note from the Epicor channel says Taylor left his position as Enterprise Channel Manager to become Regional TS Manager (technical specialist) for the West Coast for Microsoft.

SPELLING AND GRAMMAR, THE MICROSOFT WAY.
A reader responded to the mention of Orcs, the creatures from Lord of the Rings, with the observation that the spell-checker in OutLook does not recognize the word. “Apparently, MS doesn't allow the game coders and the Office coders to fraternize,” she commented. Hey, I once put the text of the Gettysburg address through a spell check. It passed “four score and seven years ago” without a change. If I use the word “was” once, it flags it as a passive use. FYI, I ran the Declaration of Independence through Word last month. I accepted the suggested change and got the following “that their Creator with certain unalienable Rights endows them.” But outside of a few archaic spellings, that was about it on grammar. Word made no comment about a 128-word sentence near the end of the declaration. Boy, I write a 30-word sentence and I get hit with, “Long sentence, consider revising.”

NETSUITE WINS DEALS AND FRIENDS?
NetSuite is always fun because it brings a different viewpoint to the market with its online application. It's bringing a new view to good relations with competing vendors too. In a release about vertical market customer wins, NetSuite proclaimed that “ New Generation of Ag Leaders Replace Stone-Age Software with NetSuite.” Stone-Age tools, in this view, include Peachtree and Accpac, both owned by Best Software. Best is preparing a response, but the company's scribes are complaining the chisels are getting dull because their stone tablets are so hard. I'm not sure this is the kind of flag a company that made less than $20 million last year should wave at a company that's about $1 billion (Sage with acquisitions).

THE NAME IS THE THING.
Courtesy of Ed Kless of Best Software, the Top 10 words used by firms in the Bob Scott Top 100 VAR list as part of their name were Information (3); Technologies (4); Services (4); Technology (5); Computer (6); Systems (9); Solutions (9); Group (12); Business (13); and coming in at No. 1, was Consulting (15). If Ed re-enters the VAR market, he plans to found a company called Consulting Business Group Solutions and Systems, Inc. No wonder I was doing double takes when I looked at names and tried to match them to results.

RANDOM THOUGHTS.
Did you know that April was “Financial Literacy Month” in California? There were public readings of P&L statements, while CPAs everywhere were given the keys to their various cities. … With “Friends,” “Angel,” and “Buffy” all gone, TV figures it can fill the void with “Transylvania 90210,” a warm comedy about six vampires in an upscale California community as they share friendship and look for blood., … Given the debut of “CSI New York” this fall, I think it's time for the CSI Channel, All CSI, All the time. Of course, there's “CSI,”” CSI Miami,”” CSI New York,”” Cold Case Files” (CSI with old cases) "Without a Trace" (CSI with missing people) and “Crossing Jordan” (CSI with autopsies). … I'm proposing a new cultural marathon. It's a cultural training session in which devotees successively view all three Lord of the Rings movies, followed by full performances of Wagner's Ring Cycle. … Last month while we were in England, the newspapers were full of speculation about soccer superstar David Beckham and whether he cheated on his wife, Victoria (formerly Posh of the Spice Girls.) Why can't we pay more attention to important things like this?

CONSULTING INSIGHTS: PASS IT ON
If you've been passing this newsletter on to others in your organization, you can have them sign up using the box below:

WANT TO SUBSCRIBE TO ACCOUNTING TECHNOLOGY?
Call (800) 221-1809 or e-mail custerv@thomsonmedia.com for subscription information. You can find a copy of our May issue at www.accountingtechnology.com
 

Use the box below to unsubscribe from Consulting Insights.

Consulting Insights May 7, 2004 (next issue mails May 21, 2004)
By Bob Scott, Editor
robert.scott@thomsonmedia.com

If you are interested in receiving more FREE e-newsletters about the hottest topics in the profession, please Click Here.

top of page