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In the shadows of bigger companies like Exact, UNIT4 and Afas operates the Veenendaal Minox Software for over thirty years on market accounting software. The company, which originally began in 1983 as MIDAS, has a loyal customer base and employees. Early this year, got the Hague investment company Invest in Écart. With this new shareholder, which has several ICT companies in its portfolio, Minox Software will grow faster and capitalize on the huge demand for cloud software.
The sixty-Ton Janssen, the man who led the company from Veenendaal twenty-five years, following the acquisition afgezwaaid as general manager. Janssen will still sit on the supervisory board that gets Minox Software, now there is an investment boarded. The founder of the software company he is not. It’s French Schaake. This thoroughbred techie working around 1980 the German office equipment manufacturer Triumph Adler that provides a mini-variant and associated vastlegprogrammatuur. In the Netherlands, many municipalities customer of the company and for example, they use the TA1100 for their financial reporting.
This mechanical-electronic equipment, the information is recorded on cassette tapes. These are read on the mainframes of computer services, such as Central Management Automation, the printed output back to the client. They are robust machines, keyboards with the size of a keyboard, which are cumbersome to use and often have faults. Schaake hatches a plan to facilitate this kind of commitment and sees opportunities in this area with the PC still small made its appearance on the market
Microsystems
.
Schaake comes into contact with Jan Buitenhuis, a marketing manager at Centraal Beheer which Triumph Adler many cooperates. Country sees what in the attitudes of Schaake that are nicer and better computer devise solutions and together they start the company Microsystems. Ton Janssen, who after a while, having worked at Volmac, has now switched to secondment Ordina Schaake still has a job at Triumph Adler early eighties. “French was busy putting a functional accounting package MIDAS. He then approached me to work on a freelance basis for its development. I did a few years.
Schaake is little techie refuse to respond to sales and also looking in that area reinforcement. He comes into contact with Paul Brouwer, an accountant who is making the transition from a position at the Ministry of Finance to the Italian computer manufacturer Olivetti. There Brouwer interfere with the automation of audit firms and companies using Olivetti’s minicomputers. Brouwer sees an exciting adventure and is moving to Microsystems. “When the PCs in the eighties really came up, Olivetti encouraged his employees to start their own shops to sell PC systems to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). There were at one time twenty Olivetti shops in every town there was one. Then also IBM released in 1984 on the Efficiency Fair in the RAI in Amsterdam its first PC on the market, a spectacular moment, I felt that it was time for the PC market to switch. “
Region Apeldoorn
As Country lives in Vaassen and Schaake Zeist choose both owners sure to open an office for Microsystems and MIDAS in Apeldoorn. At that time, there exists on the market under administration and accounting firms in high demand for affordable solutions that suits their office size. Many accountants are minicomputers and mainframes with their fully batch-oriented solutions too expensive, too big and too slow.
Schaake comes into contact with the auditing firms in Apeldoorn Area and MIDAS developed in consultation with them. “I’m still regularly note that if an accountant sees our current printouts of the software, he shouts:” Hey, there’s an accountant involved in, “laughs Janssen. “Even now, when I signup our customers on a map of Netherlands, then you see in the lands of Apeldoorn large” population density “of Minox customers.
Initially MIDAS is directed only at the accounting firms, because SMEs is not yet ripe for automation. Only a few years later, with the breakthrough of the PC, the availability of hard disk drives and the devices become cheaper, also affect customers of the auditors interested in the software. The financial functionality is extended by an hour administration. Later, there logistics products at such trade applications, sales support and inventory management
However, collaboration with Buitenhuis shows no success Schaake and establishes a new BV:. Schaake Software Products. Brouwer also establishes its own BV – Brouwer Software Products – and take its own account and risk distribution MIDAS itself. “A particular system,” he calls it. “The name stands for Micro Systems Direct administration. It was one of the first packages were developed directly for the PC. Data were processed immediately after capture. This was in contrast to the large computer systems and batch processing. The computers in those days were not so fast: you put data is fixed, and then you had a batch and that had to be processed once. It could sometimes take a really long time
tropics
.
Ton Janssen has become Ordina manager training where he has in his possession a large team of trainers which are used in the retraining courses Foundation Pawn. He meets late 1989 Schaake who know does not sit comfortable in his skin. “Actually I wanted only French program; run a business and dealing with staff, because he could not work for the feet. He asked me if I wanted to take over the case. Ordina was now grown so much that I missed the freedom to do my job. For all you had to ask permission higher and only went but to make sales. In a span of three weeks, the deal with French was around. “
On January 1, 1990 Janssen takes on the case of French Schaake about that after eight exhausting years retires from the automation industry. A few years later pushes Paul Brouwer BV in the case to be commercial director. The case moved from Zeist, where Schaake had gone to, to the more centrally located Veenendaal. One of the first actions Janssens is depositing the product name MIDAS, because it turned out to be not happened yet. The British IT company BIS Banking Limited uses this product name however, and filed it, and demands that the name is changed in the Netherlands. In 1992 the product renamed Minox
No migration drama
.
From the start the MIDAS / Minox software was developed in Basic, one of the few programming languages that are suitable for the PC. “In the beginning turned the PCs even with the CP / M operating system. But that was not a real standard; For example, you had a computer which ICL or NCR and had their own CP / M variants. We still had to go back compile, “says Brouwer. “Fortunately, then came PCs with PC-DOS or MS-DOS. They had compatibility. We had no preference for certain brands, but as the MS-DOS could handle. Besides IBM PCs turned the software on machines Tandon, Olivetti, Triumph Adler, Peachtree, Philips; nearly all PCs that later in the eighties came on the market were suitable for our floppies.
“We have sustained a long time to develop everything in Basic,” Janssen adds. “Until 2002, when we developed the software completely again, but for the Windows stack. We deliberately waited a long time with this transition, because we our competitors, such as Exact, the necessary migration dramas saw pass. We ourselves have also made a number of times one starts with the Windows development, but stopped again on time after we found that the tool that we had made in the house, yet it was not appropriate. “
” It was a gamble to wait so long, “says Brouwer. “In retrospect it proved a brilliant move, because with the most modern and stable tools could develop our Windows line. We used include DataFlex, a lesser known but excellent tool, with a stable database underneath. Because we are a small organization, we rent this kind of expertise in large projects. But the premise remains to program in-house
High priority
.
There is still some thirty customers using a DOS package of Minox. Although its development is down, the company continues to support the software. Janssen: “We ensure that the software can also function under new Windows versions as far as DOS is still present. But that’s it then. ”
According to the director afzwaaiende this situation is typical for three things: Minox has a loyal customer base, many of the 4,700 customers are already beginning to question; the commitment and loyalty of the staff is great (there is almost no attrition and employees know customers by name), and the flexibility of a small company. “We engage with each other much easier than in a large company. If we do not like something then we stop and if we have devised a clever solution or seen then we go there quickly get to work. “
For example, he points to the possibility that Minox package from 1992 offers to interactively modify a reservation or delete without the user still finds something back. “In our software you did not reverse, which often led to fiddling. In this we were one of the first. The Tax was nervous of, you could delete things in a digital records without leaving a trace behind, but accepted it after an inspection nonetheless. We pointed out that a user could also make a backup, and after an error in the accounting system backup could turn back. What then modify the difference? With this functionality, we have that time to give them a decent stroke knowledge in the market “
Competition
.
In the eighties, the company sells its software through the dealer channel, but once in the nineties dealers get more attention for all PC-private projects and involvement is less Minox decides to take sales into their own hands. “We now have no more dealers. Direct sales to customers has the advantage that you can advise. Today there are companies that take over the whole administration online, especially for small businesses. Think of companies like Reeleezee, Quibus, Accumulus and Yuki. But if you throw things over the fence, you lose sight of your expenses and your revenue. What we notice in our customer base is that accountants and entrepreneurs want to keep an eye on how it is accounted for. The moment you leave entirely to another, you lose that control. Anyway, those parties have proven that they can also take a share of the pie relish. We position ourselves above it, with more substantive knowledge, services and experience.
MIDAS / Minox Software has always managed to hold. In the eighties, the company is able to get a top five spot-market accounting software between the parties as Unit 4, Exact, Grote Beer and Wind Gases Software. Competitors will fall away and there are also gradually in such Accountview (now Visma), King, Mouse Software, Twinfield (part of Wolters Kluwer) and in the lower segment of SMEs Davilex and Quick Start.
According to Brouwer has there been in the last decades of sprawl and there are the necessary financial software vendors defunct, especially from industry packets that often were no more than an Excel version. “It’s become a fighter market. That notice also to large companies like Exact and Unit 4 which have the ambition to be the biggest. Though it seems that most of the parties or their niches found to stably operate there. Our target is very clear accounting firms and their clients’
Investor
. Both directors have never really felt the urge of big, bigger, biggest. Both have something of why only increase if it can be better. That is their view the main reason Minox still there: that quality is of paramount importance. “It is not for nothing that we are a relatively small organization of eleven men serve a base of 4700 customers,” observes the pair on. “And that also includes accounting firms of sixty, seventy men at working with Minox. We have always been pleased with our work and financially it’s always gone well through licenses and service subscriptions. What also plays a role: we both share the experience of what can happen when a company is too big. We do not want another witness’
Yet there early this year attracted a new shareholder, please note an investment:. Écart Invest. This has partly to do with ensuring the continuity of the company. Écart still recruits a management buy in (MBI) -ondernemer, with a proven track record, which in turn also wants to invest in Minox. Janssen with confidence the case may transfer after twenty-five years. Écart says not to be an investor after a few years already want an exit for the fast money. For the organization, product, and staff will change too little
On the cloud
.
Indeed , is this year additional development and marketing manpower recruited to accelerate cloud development. Minox Software since 2012 with the help of the development platform of Servoy busy building a cloud proposition. In 2014, the company has put its new generation of administrative cloud software market in which the client and his accountant can work against an all-in monthly rates.
The next time will come Minox Software with additional cloud modules. “Work has been proven in the cloud, especially for an accounting package, offer many advantages: always available, platform independent – also suitable for Apple, Google PCs, tablets and smartphones – and not worry about versioning and making backups, “says commercial director Brouwer.
According to Janssen, is a cloud solution for both accountants and entrepreneurs a solution. For accountants, it means they can work better with customers and offer them more value. For the small business cloud modules are also an attractive solution. “That will buy a software package for its accounting often too much hassle. But if it’s in the cloud, with the approval of the tax authorities and the consent of his accountant that breaks down barriers. I understood from the tax authorities that there are still more than one hundred thirty thousand small entrepreneurs in the Netherlands that have not computerized their records. Since the coming years is definitely a growing market for Minox Software.
This article was previously published in abbreviated form in Computable magazine volume 48, number 5 of May 2015.
Its customer base includes many accountants and accounting as Accountantskantoor Paul Helsloot, Trust Funny, LG Belastingadviesbureau and Westfrisian mathematician.
Minox also serves other parties from small and medium enterprises, including Agriprom, Car Bultman, Bospark Beekbergen, Electro Plast, Kebo-the Heuning and Typhone.nl.
According to the tax authorities in the Netherlands are still more than 130,000 small business owners who have not computerized their records. Since the coming years for Minox with its cloud software Software is a growth market
.
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