Long-time higher-education software vendor Software Research Northwest (SRN) took its products into the stable of another education solution provider in early July. SRN’s products become part of the Bi-Tech group at Sungard, a $1 billion company which has sold enough asset management solutions, securities software and services for high availability to become a publically traded company. Since Sungard’s acquisition of SRN took place on July 1, SEC regulations kept Sungard or SRN from commenting on the deal through a quiet period ending July 23. Bi-Tech became part of the Sungard empire in 1995, and it’s got more than 500 clients using IFAS, a financial management system sold to higher educational institutions, government administration, private foundations, school districts, and other not-for-profit agencies. Bi-Tech’s business focus has drifted away from the HP 3000 heartland that founded the company, but it’s been offering HP 3000 financial solutions since 1981 and sells into the same sector and to many of the same clients as SRN. SRN counts almost as much time in the HP 3000 market, offering its IRIS record keeping system for student and faculty at colleges and universities. The SRN IRIS software manages admissions marketing, registration, financial aid, student affairs, housing, alumni records and development; IRISLink provides connectivity to students and faculty over the Web for reporting, data entry, and class registration.

SRN has been a strong supporter of the HP 3000 community, making forays into the tools businesses and technical publishing over the past two decades. The company engineered WingSpan software to give a GUI interface to customers with stock HP terminals, software that continues to work in many MANMAN ERP sites today. In the early 1990s the company introduced the Nuggets collection of utilities for HP 3000s, software whose marketing and technical support has since moved to Lund Performance Solutions and been renamed the Lund Performance Toolbox. SRN’s engineering and business management was also essential in creating SPLash, the first and only PA-RISC HP 3000 compiler for Systems Programming Language, the fundamental language of the earliest HP 3000s. SPLash was an essential tool in HP’s migration of the MPE V-based IMAGE to TurboIMAGE/XL, as well as several HP-written applications; it’s now being sold by Allegro Consultants. SRN also published the first guide to the PA-RISC architecture in 1988 with “Beyond RISC,” a book that sold more than 20,000 copies while RISC was still a new computing concept for HP 3000 developers and software suppliers.

Just before Sungard’s acquisition of the firm, SRN had just signed up its 103rd IRIS customer, Eastern Oklahoma State University. The institution recently installed DegreeWorks, SRN’s software module for degree audits and advising. The company’s VP of Sales and Marketing Mike Fox is now a regional sales manager for Bi-Tech’s US Higher Education sector.