.riess applications has its sights firmly set on the new financial year with Open Source
The first half of the 2008/09 financial year was characterised by a distinct reticence on the part of customers to invest in new themes. However, since the turn of the year it has been clearly noticeable that many companies see an opportunity in the area of Open Source on the desktop to consolidate their IT budget on a sustainable basis in times of crisis.
In addition to pure migration projects .riess applications is therefore in demand by the customers primarily in the area of consulting and coaching before and during a launch. This trend is no longer based merely on the introduction of LibreOffice & OpenOffice, but also on the great insecurity surrounding MS Office 2007 (and successor products) in different areas such as user interface, document format or upgrade expenditure. This development and our experience show how much value customers place on experience in these areas.
Many new customers have been acquired in the area of public administration such as local authorities, regional authorities and residential construction companies. The private sector is also playing an ever greater role, however. More new customers have been acquired in the financial sector in particular, with banks and building societies, as well as in industry, mechanical engineering and automobile ancillary suppliers than in any other sectors.
According to managing director Lothat Becker, .riess applications is well equipped to meet the challenges of the coming financial year. He attributes this to the many years of experience in consulting and implementation of Open Source topics on the desktop which are precisely the subjects that are currently up and coming. In addition to the continuing high demand for consulting and coaching, Becker expects growth in the new financial year in the area of migration and integration with Office applications and other Open Source desktop systems.
