Greentree gamble starting to pay off

By RICHARD WOOD

A gamble four years ago to build a Windows-based accounting package is beginning to pay off for Greentree International, despite a painfully slow switch over by its "legacy" CBA customers.

The Auckland company, owned by CBA founder Don Bowman, Justin Watt and Paul Mann, has reached a turning point in its 19-year history with half its income now coming from the newer Greentree product.

But the Dos-based CBA accounting software still accounts for most of the company's installed base of 2500 to 3000 users in New Zealand and Australia.

Only 200 Greentree packages have been sold - the latest to Solomon Telekom in the Solomon Islands - well below the number of sales the firm had anticipated.

But executive director Peter Dickenson said the average site value and site size was about 40 per cent bigger than had been initially expected.

With a tight economic environment, stiff competition and Microsoft flexing its muscle through Navision and especially its Great Plains acquisition, now is not the best time to be a small local accounting software firm.

But Dickenson is convinced the company's experience and relationships will see it through.

"We don't obviously have their [Microsoft's] financial clout, product development resources, and definitely don't have their marketing resources.

"But on the other hand, there is a 20-year history in terms of creating locally applicable product."

He said 30 per cent of Greentree sales were from CBA sites.

The software market had matured, with 15-20 per cent of firms replacing their accounting systems each year and a new market of about 5 per cent annually.

Sixty per cent of Greentree's business is international, mostly Australia.

It has made three beta sales in the United States and has sites in Vanuatu and Fiji.