[archive] Acucorp = Micro-Focus

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Hi,
We are an ex microfocus customer.

We did not have very many good experiences with them.

Shaun

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

could be that dialect compatibilty between two version?
that would be nice... even though i haven't used MF product, they may have a better .net solution.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

I hope it will be a good thing, but what bothers me about the announcment is that there is no FAQ to explain how Acucorp customers and ISV's will be affected. It's natural to have serious concerns when a company you rely on so much has been sold. There should be a FAQ available now to help answer these concerns.

• • For instance, acucorp and microfocus products overlap, so why would they continue with two main product lines?
    
  • Which product line will they go with?
    
  • Will there be migration paths?
    
  • How will pricing be affected?
    
  • How will ISV contracts be affected?
    
  • How will product support be affected?
    

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

In a way yes.
Their support desk was generally manned by staff whose primary language was not English.

When we started looking at moving our product to a more modern environment they were most unhelpfull I have to say.
Plus they didn't actually have a suitable product anyway.

Support generally bombarded you with information which usually made you forget about the problem, or work around it.

I found the filehandling awfull with MF, we were constantly rebuilding files.

Dan, we have exactly the same questions which we'll be asking our account manager about next week.
ISV's should at least have been emailed I think.

Shaun

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Acucorp was a small closely held company that has just be bought out by an English Company a hand full of time zones away by a publicly traded company.

The timing of the announcement and the number of people that could be involved in any discussion relating to this situation is completely governed by the rules of the London Stock Exchange and English Law. Yes, I would like to know all of the "what ifs", but that information (if it even exists) is just not ready for public consumption yet.

If memory serve me correctly, a few years back, the original MicroFocus was purchased by a holding company the same way. This is a financial deal that puts the two best COBOL companies together. There is something about that, that interests me.

I wish I new exactly how this was going to affect us, but if I was smart enough to understood everything, the $40M would probably not seem like such a big number.

I do have enough faith in the original Acucorp team to think that this deal will start out with a plan that will improve the Acucorp products and provide better service for the users. Will this actually happen? I don't know. I imagine that there will be lots of changes and probably some price increases, but I think eventually we will find some good things to say about this deal.

---

John Cope

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Good points John. English stock market in a different time zone, now why didn't I think of that? :)

Since ownsership and management is now changing hands we simply don't know that our positive experience with Acucorp will remain the same. I certainly hope it does and I'm willing to give it every opportunity. However, the truth is that the devil is always in the details. As I said before, I hope this acquisiton will be a good thing.

Most importantly, however, I hope that Microfocus management is forthcoming with information regarding changes that affect Acucorp customers.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Sounds like prices are going to rise....

"Following the acquisition, Micro Focus plans to restructure the business and aims to increase margins over time to a level consistent with Micro Focus' existing business."

http://investors.microfocus.com/mcro/investor-info/rns/rnsitem?id=1178258490nRNSD1067W

I want to hear from our Acucorp rep before we get excited or disappointed :( :confused:

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Sounds like prices are going to rise....

The margin leveling could mean a number of things, like cost savings through corporate restructuring and consolidation of services and resources.
If it does mean a price increase, then I won't mind paying it if their is additonal product value.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Hello everyone,
we phoned our local Acu support: they too doesn't have, except official Acu online announcement, news about the acquisition. I think it is not a good way to start (or to end???) a business relationship, with employees and customers too.
Increase of prices at a glance:mad: ? We hope not to be the way of: Acu is still one of the last Dev Enviroment that asks royalties for runtime distribution and making extra-money on customers I think wouldn't be a good presentation card.
bye Giovanni.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

In a way yes.
Their support desk was generally manned by staff whose primary language was not English.

Shaun

Hi Shaun,
:confused: but how does can an English company as MF can have support staff that doesn't speak english as primary language?

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Hi Giovanni,

Don't quite know the answer to that, but what I do know is that anytime we every called with a problem the person we talked to was almost always French.

Shaun

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 May 2007]

Hello everyone.
Micro Focus acquired Acu! :confused: What do you, customers, think about it?
bye Giovanni.

Hi everyone:

I was very surprised at the announcement about MicroFocus. As a former RM-Cobol developer, my experience with Acu has been uniformly positive. My questions are the same as Dan's.

My hope is that we are not headed off a cliff...

Matt Cantillon