The worldwide microcomputer software market has grown dramatically over the past 18 months and though there may be dominant companies such as Lotus, Microsoft and Ashton-Tate, the rate of expansion has created opportunities for new contenders, reckons Software Publishing Corp, Mountain View, California. The company says that some producers, including itself, have seen their turnover leap between 1986 and 1987 – for its fiscal 1987, turnover rose about 70% to $38m. This rate was matched by net profitability in the first quarter of 1988: up 79.4% at $2.8m. In the UK, turnover rose 600% last year, its second year after a standing start in 1986. Software Publishing has been operating in America since 1980, when it was founded by three ex-Hewlett Packard employees, and is regarded as a veteran in the business. Another factor in the market taking off could also be that hardware such as VGA cards and improved output devices have made it cheaper and easier to display information graphically. Software Publishing has over 100 dealers in the UK and is aggressive in the market, as Microsoft found to their cost last year, when the expected marketing triumph of its integrated Works package was thwarted by Software’s PFS: First Choice, which it claims has outsold Works two and a half times. The sales strategy of the company was refined in the spring of 1987 when it stopped employing manufacturers sales representatives and developed an in-house team of its own. There was an initial shortfall in revenue but the company reckons the move has paid off. Most of Software Publishing’s products are still for MS-DOS but it is expanding its portfolio for the the Macintosh and for Unix and is starting to work on OS/2 packages. It views OS/2 as a tough, long haul development project dependent on the launch of Presentation Manager, and Software Publishing says it will be pursuing a standardisation strategy around the screen driver. 1989 will be critical because it will evaluate OS/2 standards in the spring; it says it will be near impossible to forecast turnover for 1990 as pricing on OS/2 products is very uncertain.
