Nixon promises to soldier on

Press, 5 August 1988, Page 19

Nixon promises to soldier on

Mr Rodger Nixon, the software entrepreneur, says he has the cash to press on with development of his Christchurch software product, Exsys. He plans to begin hiring staff again — but employees still owed several weeks pay and dismissed will have to wait some time for pay owed. He arrived back in Christchurch from America yesterday. He will return to America for two weeks to tidy up affairs in Exsys, Inc., and then will return to run Adata software, ending his four years in America marketing the system. Mr Nixon, Mr Peter Roselli, and about eight former employees own Adata Software, which owns the software product. This had been leased to the Delaware-registered Exsys, Inc., whose funds have dried up. Mr Nixon says rights to Exsys have reverted to Adata Software the owner, with the collapse of lease conditions to Exsys. He says a cash stream will be generated from Total Systems in Britain and Albian in Canada, two software consultants and developers. They will support and distribute Exsys. Albian will add distribution in the eastern United

States to its Canadian coverage. He asserted that income from the Exsys product would be S2M in the next 12 to 18 months. There were now about 35 installations of Exsys, Mr Nixon said. He disputes descriptions of it as a software generator. “It is a software development tool, with many elements of Case technology. It is an expert system for software development.” Mr Nixon conceded there were at least moral obligations to pay the dismissed Christchurch software staff wages owed. But he made it clear that this would have to wait. Funds for continuing development would take precedence in the meantime. Mr Nixon is talking of a staff considerably smaller than the peak of 25 at Exsys, but his plans have not shrunk. He wants to complete the conversion of Exsys to run on IBM mainframes, and to convert it to run under Unix, and on IBM’s new AS/400 series. He wants also to complete a graphics link, using Macintosh microcomputers. The graphics would be used in depicting software systems.