At last week’s Support Services Conference & Expo in Reno, Nevada, Foresight Software Inc, Atlanta, Georgia introduced a new client-server version of its customer service software, the Service Management System, integrated with version 8.0 of Progress Software Corp’s application development environment and database. Currently it runs only on Unix server and clients. First components will be available from next month from $5,000 to $8,000 per concurrent user under Hewlett-Packard and IBM Unix, Windows NT servers and Windows clients. It supports Oracle and Sybase now, with a Microsoft Corp SQL Server connection due. A Progress license is required. Other Service Management System modules will follow. Foresight is owned by Marcam Corp and until last December traded as its MXP Business Group. With a new management team and restart strategy in place, the unit expects to grow to $20m this year from $17.5m and to 120 staff from 90. It counts total service providers such as Astea International Inc and Metrix SA as its competition rather than help desk providers such as Clarify Corp and Vantive Corp. It claims better functionality, a single application development environment and a more service-oriented approach. It says Progress wants to license back some of the tools it has developed, but as Astea uses a Powersoft-Progress offering, it is unwilling to see its added value go to its competition. Metrix apparently uses Unify for development. Foresight claims 75 users – all under Unix right now, and has a Web product line in the pipeline.
