Fundsoft - Michael Bunce

Fundsoft turned up at another low point in my life; Cap Gemini had lost some of their market share and were looking at voluntary (and some not-so-voluntary) redundancies, and shipping all their programming requirements overseas like their competitors were doing. They had announced the forthcoming termination of the CUTAS project I was working on, and with programming roles now becoming scarcer than hens teeth it was find a position in sales or be considered as having made myself unemployed (so no redundancy!).

Fundsoft had been recently incorporated and had already acquired the COBAS system and were apparently looking to corner the market in bespoke funds software; they duly purchased the CUTAS software from Cap Gemini along with the support team, and so I transferred to Fundsoft with twelve years of service, all of which I lost when the firm declared insolvency at short notice some eighteen months later. By short notice I mean that in the morning we were gainfully employed and by lunchtime we were in the pub across the road wondering what had happened to our future.

Curiously, when the insolvency paperwork materialised it turned out that Fundsoft had little in the way of assets, and certainly not the COBAS or CUTAS software which was apparently now being leased from another company; just approximately £500 worth of second-hand office equipment, about £9000 in cash and a staggering £500,000 of debts. When Fundsoft employed us they reassured us that finance was not a problem as they had some of the richest businessmen in Scotland backing them - should have wondered how they got to be the richest businessmen in Scotland....