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Phil Minaar, the MD of Urica Integrated Systems since 1995, has announced the appointment of the Rebus Group as UK distributors of the
product and at the same time the decision by Robert Gordon´s University in Aberdeen to replace their McDonnell Douglas version of the software with the South African version.
Rebus - the appointed distributors for the new Urica - have a strong track record in providing systems to both local government and
higher education in the UK. They have a firm financial structure and experience in delivering systems and support as well as other systems using the Universe database.
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In South Africa, Urica have a strong position despite the recent incursion by Ex-Libris and Innovative.
Some further consolidation of the marketplace is expected as incumbent supplies react to overseas competition.
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At a technical level, Trevor Gadd the chief system architect, has developed the new Urica with a careful eye on the torrent of recent
technical changes.
The choice of a thin client system with a Web browser rather than a proprietory GUI looks like being a shrewd move. Urica are also making a bold move to catch the latest techno/marketing wave by announcing availability on Linux during April ´99 when Universe also becomes available on this operating platform.
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During the isolation years, Urica became very functionally rich.
By re-emerging now, the system has managed to avoid the massive investment on innapropriate client server technologies and has jumped straight to a Web browser GUI. In the UK it means another strong contender for the large system market already being shaken up by Ex-Libris and Endeavour recently. The ambitions of the company and quality of the software will no doubt see an interesting market development in both the English speaking countries and, since Urica is Unicode compliant , in the rest of the world too.
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Urica - background |
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Urica was born in South Africa in the early 1980s when an
enthusiast for the Pick Operating system - John Cormack- discovered how well it would fit with the needs of the University of Durban and proposed he build a system. The system flourished in South
Africa and two strains of the system escaped - one to Australia (200 systems) and one to UK (35 systems) where they evolved separately to met local marketing needs.
The system also sold to 5 US libraries as “Zebra”.
In the UK, the system was very successful and achieved a peak
of 35 sites and was just in the process of developing a complete new version (Pro IV Lion) when the flotation of MDIS in the UK and subsequent financial problems forced abndonnment of the product.
Ameritech took over the UK maintenance of the system and slowly sites have re-equipped with other systems.
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Review |
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Biblio Tech Review will be reveiwing the new Urica during the Library and Information Show at NEC UK during June 1999.
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