Cincom (UK) Ltd, headquartered in Maidenhead, Berkshire has recorded 1989 UK revenues of UKP13.9m, up 12% from last year’s UKP12.4m. UK managing director Terry Booth sees the increase as not terribly dramatic or phenomenal, but fairly solid. And that, one assumes, is what Tom Nies, president, chief executive officer, and 90% shareholder, is looking for. European revenue also increased, up 11% to $70m, from $63m in 1988. Cincom says that the fastest growing sector in the UK is manufacturing control systems, which represents 40% of total revenue, with the Supra database and Mantis applications generator providing 35%, and NetMaster contributing 25%. Revenue by hardware manufacturer is still dominated by IBM with 66%, followed by DEC and ICL, at 25% and 5%. In 1988, the percentage contributions were 74%, 18%, and 7% respectively, and Booth says that the lower IBM figure illustrates the softening of mainframe business, and he foresees that percentage falling to around 60%. He also plans to revitalise the falling ICL contribution by developing sales and marketing channels similar to those in place for IBM and DEC. Cincom is one the very few well-established US software companies that is still firmly privately held – and is emphatically multinational, with 63% of revenue coming from outside the US. Booth regards this as fortunate, since it distances the company from the vagaries of the US market. NetMaster has contributed an extra 7% to revenues this year, but despite its growing importance, Cincom merely distributes the product on behalf of the Australian, Software Developments Pty, and has no input into research and development. As regards the future, Mantis is currently being field tested under Unix, and cautiously evaluated for AS/400. Booth claims that IBM uses databases as a method of account control, and he is aware that DB2 will always take the lion’s share of the market. However, he is equally certain that Cincom will maintain its specialist niche position so long as DB2 can’t deliver performance without risk, and Cincom continues to provide extensive support facilities such as its worldwide on-line support service, Cinternet.
