Independent software vendors, including Alsys SA in La Celle Saint-Cloud, France, Atria Systems Inc of Natick, Massachusetts, CaseWare Inc of Costa Mesa, California, CenterLine Software Inc and Integrated Computer Solutions both of Cambridge, Massachusetts, San Diego, California-based ExperSoft Corp, Reading, Berkshire-based Imperial Software Technology Ltd, IXI Ltd in Cambridge and Menlo Park, California-based Lucid Inc have formed a ‘Coalition for Software Productivity through Open Systems’. The Coalition feels that many development organisations are not aware of the range of independent software products available because of the way hardware vendors dominate sales channels. Its idea is to promote independent software vendor tools and help get information on all of their respective products to engineers, developers and managers. The Coalition reckons firms spend a lot of time evaluating hardware, little on development tools, even though large vendors that once bundled tools with their boxes, typically sell them for thousands of dollars.
