Mortice Kern Systems Ltd of Waterloo, Ontario has announced a tie-up with major Japanese software distributor LifeBoat Software Ltd for distribution of its RCS Revision Control System in Japan. LifeBoat believes that the RCS system has considerable potential for Japan as Japanese companies move into development on personal computer and Unix systems. Mortice Kern RCS keeps a documented history of file changes during project development and features include branching, merging, visual differencing, report generation, encryption, and support for binary and text files. LifeBoat has Japanised the product, translating it and providing double-byte capabilities. LifeBoat sells many other personal computer and Unix compilers and tools in Japan, including Fuzz-C from Canadian company Byte Craft Ltd, C-View from Image Soft Inc, Hi-Cross from Hi-Ware AG, Switzerland, relying heavily on its dealer network. LifeBoat’s price for Revision Control System is $527 in a single-user configuration, while in a local network package for five usres, the price is $1,800. With the announcement of Revision Control System, LifeBoat will stop selling the previous Mortice Kern product, PVCS, Package Version Control System, and will seek to convert those users to RCS. Lifeboat’s sales for its last financial year were $6.6m.
