Access rustles Pegasus dealers
Access Accounting has turned up the heat another notch in the accountancy software market by claiming to have poached a number of rival firm Pegasus's largest dealers.
Access Accounting has turned up the heat another notch in the accountancy software market by claiming to have poached a number of rival firm Pegasus's largest dealers.
Access, which offers a range of Windows 2000 and PowerPC web-enabled financial management and accounting software, is pushing for pole position in the SME accounting software arena, and claimed Pegasus resellers are moving over to its products.
Tony Barrow, sales director at Access, claimed resellers are switching allegiance because of its range of client-server products, which are compatible with Microsoft's .Net platform, and because Pegasus abandoned the development of its own web-enabled software, Mpower.
"Access has recruited 10 former Pegasus resellers already this year," Barrow claimed. He said that Access aims to recruit at least 80 dedicated partners by the end of the year.
Paul Deane, joint managing director of printing industry reseller Shuttleworth, admitted it had decided to partner with Access.
"We were Pegasus's main Mpower reseller, but it decided to cease development of the product because of its integration with Systems Union and Freecom," said Deane. "This left us to find another web-enabled accounting suite."
Shuttleworth will be persuading its existing Pegasus customers to change to Access software as well as win new customers, Deane claimed.
Andy West, sales director at Pegasus, said it is up to resellers to choose which vendors they work with.
"At the end of the day, resellers will deal with whichever vendor they wish," he said.
"Shuttleworth made a commercial decision to partner with someone else and Pegasus has no particular views on that or any other of our resellers opting for other products. We still have new resellers coming. The accountancy software marketplace is never static," he said.
Also published in Computer Reseller News