The Santa Cruz Operation Inc has signed up six UK software vendors to provide packaged, multi-user accountancy systems running under Santa Cruz Unix, including installation, training and maintenance, in addition to hardware and software through Basingstoke, Hampshire-based outlet Frontline Distribution Ltd. The six are Pegasus Group Plc, Multisoft Financial Solutions Ltd, Sage Group Plc, Systems Union Ltd, Tetra Ltd and Misys Plc’s TIS Software Ltd. First out of the gate is Pegasus, which is offering its Unifacts accounting software on a four-user Santa Cruz Unix-based Intel Corp iAPX-86 system – with Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordperfect – for UKP10,000. Initiatives with the other five firms will follow later in the year. Santa Cruz claims 31% of multi-user accounting systems costing under UKP50,000 installed in the UK run under its version of Unix, while London-based market research firm Ovum Ltd – which says accounting is by far the largest application software sector in the UK – forecasts an annual growth rate of around 23% for the Unix-based accounting software market to 1995. Santa Cruz and Pegasus are hoping to take advantage of an increased demand for computer-based accounting systems expected when new accountancy regulations come into force in the UK next year, which will make it very difficult, the two claim, for companies to perform accounting tasks, like payroll, without a computer. Presently, only some 2,500 of Pegasus’ 80,000-odd users are running their accounts under Unix of any kind.
