Omicron Management Software Ltd, London yesterday launched its new PowerPlus business and accounting software, marking both the coming of age of its PowerSystems products and the start of its five year, three part corporate plan. PowerPlus, the first stage in that strategy, is compatible across the entire 8086 to 80386 spectrum and comprises 14 integrated modules including financial planning, payroll and stock control. Addressing the top-end of the PC-DOS market, it features enhanced security with user-specific passwords and screens, can work in any two colours and has multi-currency capabilities for invoicing and sales analysis. In addition it has increased field sizes for names and addresses, the length and name of which can be defined by the user, integration between modules as well as standard reports and report writers whose form is also user- controlled. Omicron reckons PowerPlus’ flexibility is due to parameterisation. Put simply this is the ability to change the rules specific to any of the one to 999 ledgers on PowerPlus. It also allows the user to alter prompts. Of Omicron’s 6,000 users worldwide – 3,000 of which are in the UK – it doubts that any two run the ledgers in the same way. Parts two and three of the company’s strategy come to fruition next year when new products will be launched to meet the needs of the C-based software and Unix sectors on super micros and super minis and also the bottom end High Street shop market. The former will see a range of real-time, on line software written in a proprietary language using a subset of C, developed by Omicron at its Telford Research and Development facility. A scaled down stand-alone version of PowerPlus will be introduced for the low cost end. Both will be fully compatible with the product launched yesterday and provide automatic upgrade paths. To upgrade from PowerSystems to PowerPlus costs nothing if a company is currently receiving maintenance for PowerSystems. Prices for PowerPlus range from UKP700 to UKP1,500 for a single module. Omicron sees the proposed low end model version with Pegasus from Brikat Group. It thinks the upgradability that will be offered by its product range will then put it in a prime position to take a significant slice of Pegasus’ market share. Omicron users include the Ministry of Defence, Shell and the Sheraton group. PowerPlus will also run under OS/2 when it finally makes an appearance.
