Electronic Data Processing Plc is keen to refocus on software publishing and services because its revenues are being hit by declining hardware margins. Research and development spend has increased 19.1% to UKP530,000 as a result. The Sheffield-based company believes that the transition from being a computer distribution and services company will take between two and three years. And finance director Jeff Green is convinced that object-oriented technology and open systems are the way ahead. EDP will release a shrink-wrapped object-oriented database management system in the first quarter of 1993, based on Pick Systems Inc’s database (CI No 2,066). It will run on any Unix System V.4 machine. Green says it is especially suited to Univel Inc’s UnixWare, but will also run under Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT and NeXT Inc’s NeXTstep, when released. The new product is not expected to sell in any significant amounts until 1994, but it will be available internationally for the first time; EDP only sells into the UK and Europe at the moment. Although turnover fell 11.3% to $15.5m, pre-tax profits for the year ending September 30 rose 19.4% to $4.9m. Green said that profits increased because the group made a lot of new software licence sales and licence renewals, in particular with the Mentor Merchant wholesale distribution software. The cost involved in these activities is minimal. Services now account for UKP8m of group revenues – the figure includes both licence renewals and equipment maintenance fees. The entire range of the company’s software is built around AT&T Co subsidiary NCR Corp’s Applied Digital Data Systems Inc Mentor range of Pick-under-Unix boxes, which the company assembled for the European market for a time. Even after spending almost UKP2m on a freehold office building, Beauchief Hall – the new company headquarters and centre for software research and development – EDP has cash balances of UKP10.2m. One possible way of spending it, Green ventured, would be to buy a wholesale distribution business to supplement the Merchant product line.
