Whether the future of the server market is Unix, IBM Corp AS/400 or even Windows NT, JBA Holdings Plc is ready. That’s the message from chairman Alan Vickery as the Birmingham-based software company reported pre-tax profits up a healthy 33% to ú6.1m from turnover up 22% at ú90.7m in its first full year since flotation. The figures include those from the loss-making Spanish operation, which was disposed of last year. The core of JBA’s business is products and software support, principally for AS/400 systems. Product sales are up by 45% to ú35m but software support services revenues declined by 11% to ú26.3m. This is because JBA is selling increasingly to niche markets where the product fits better, hence less need for support, it says. Maintenance and other revenues – including hardware sales – increased. JBA’s main product Bus 400 continues to do well, and despite having being re-engineered to run under Unix, the AS/400 has a fan club that isn’t going to go away, according to Vickery. System 21 is the result of this re-engineering and when the OpenRoute software is ready – it is at the tuning stage at present – JBA will be able to offer customers the ability to convert RPG code running AS/400s to C++ in Oracle on System 21.

Stunning quality of the graduates

Vickery believes that Unix looks the best bet for database servers, but if Microsoft can fix the performance problems of Windows NT, he believes that it could become the system of choice for applications servers. The Guidelines graphical client-server object-based development environment, continues to do well in a crowded market, JBA says, and an object technology version was released last month. In the UK, JBA’s biggest market, revenues grew only slightly, to ú35.2m – an increase in product sales was offset by a fall in support services. JBA has set a up a base in Ireland to benefit from the 10% tax rate accorded manufacturing companies and the stunning quality of the graduates. Demand in the US and Canada was strong and progress was made in Latin America, with the exception of Mexico. JBA is in the last throes of selling its Mexican operation to a local software group and has decided that in the future it will only enter into partnerships – rather than setting up new subsidiaries – in non- English speaking countries, unless it is able to install a complete JBA management team there. A prime example of this is in Germany where JBA went into partnership with the software company Ratioplan GmbH of Villingen. It is in due diligence proceedings and will acquire the company for an initial of ú1.75m to be raised from a rights issue, with an earn-out of up to ú9.8m by 1999. JBA intends to use Germany as a base for further expansion into Europe. JBA’s new System 21 will provide competition for SAP AG in the corporate Unix market, and SAP’s recent bad press in Germany stikes a chord with Vickery. He described SAP’s business strategy as a classical Germanic corsetted approach with a tendency to over-engineer. You can’t knock the product, but the cost and timescale of implementation are its Achilles heel, he added. JBA hopes that its more open Silicon Valley approach will pay dividends on SAP’s doorstep. The Asia Pacific region was well served by Australia, and JBA has recently acquired HB&A in Melbourne to further progress there. JBA presently farms out about 20% of its programming to Sri Lanka and has recently added India, where it gets programmers from a little as $10 per hour. Research and development is some 15% of turnover: high because it expenses all of its software research as it yields revenues within one year, and to a lesser extent to purchased research and development, the final ú900,000 of which will be paid off this year. As research costs are greater than profits they will be kept under close watch, JBA says. Vickery was reluctant to make any forecasts other than as the products gain further acceptance around the world, he expects 1995 to be another year of sustained growth. The board recommends a final dividend of 2.5 pence, maki

ng a yearly total of 3.3 pence per share, an increase of 38% on what would have been declared if the firm had been listed throughout 1993.