Blair kills off euro software

		BLAIR DITHERING "KILLS OFF" IT SOFTWARE
		DESIGNED TO BENEFIT BRITISH BUSINESSES

Government dithering over the euro has effectively killed off an innovative computer package designed to benefit British businesses and their customers.

While Prime Minister Tony Blair has launched what the Government proclaims to be a dedicated drive for growth in e-commerce, his failure to set a firm timetable for Britain's adoption of the euro has resulted in the loss of thousands of development man-hours in at least one start-up software house.

And the highly sophisticated product they were working on, Abacus, has had to be mothballed, its future uncertain.

Fastrack IT Consultancy Director, Paul Rosenthal, said today: "We have spent thousands of expensive working hours on the development of this product which was designed to help British companies move over to the euro.

"Apart from the appalling waste of resources and money that has been
caused by the shelving of Abacus, I feel most strongly for the many developers who over the past 18 months have put so much work into it, only to see their efforts wasted."

Abacus is a computer package being developed by the start-up software house for the telecommunications reseller market, providing advanced billing, customer services and marketing functionality over the internet with specific emphasis on the euro.

Such a development would allow telecommunications operators to provide a higher level of service to customers, lower operating costs and lower prices to customers, as well as complex analysis of customers' calling patterns, leading to sophisticated tariffs, discounts and offers to be created to increase customer loyalty.

Based on market Oracle database software, Abacus would support both large and small installations with ease, and provide a robust, secure, resilient and fast platform for present and future development.

Uniquely, Abacus was being designed from the ground up to be fully euro compliant. This would allow UK-based telecommunications operators to expand into Europe and the rest of the world, seamlessly operating and reporting in home currency, dual currency and foreign currency modes.

Rosenthal explained that Fastrack IT programmers had devoted thousands of man-hours to the development of Abacus so far, with further significant investment still required to bring the product to market. But, the indecision by the Government, and its "inability to provide unequivocal commitment to a timetable for adoption of the euro" has left the market for the new software in turmoil.

Rosenthal said he now believed it was too risky to devote any further resources to the development of Abacus, and it was being placed in mothballs for the foreseeable future.

"Until we have some clear direction from this Government on what is
happening with the euro we cannot afford to devote any more man hours to this project. The Prime Minister says he wants to encourage the IT sector and e commerce, but on the most critical issue we are left fumbling in the dark. Until we get a clear commitment Abacus remains on the shelf.

"I'm sure Fastrack IT is not alone in this position."

Nevertheless, it could be that while its shelving would be a loss to British business generally, there may be a silver-lining for Fastrack IT.

Explained Rosenthal: "We will be using a lot of the technology from Abacus in our new flagship product suite, CRM Lite, which is sophisticated customer relationship management software for small and medium enterprises, also based on market leading Oracle software."

paul.rosenthal_at_fastrack-it.co.uk Received on Mon Oct 04 1999 - 16:21:30 CEST