Abacus Blog

Congress has refused to pass a bill to prop up the ailing American-based automobile industry. What’s more, they’ve considered the pros and cons of an aid package not just once, but twice. That’s a strong message. It’s clear that our elected legislators lack the confidence that Chrysler, Ford and General Motors can pull themselves out of the tailspin that they’ve put themselves in over the past few years.

Now it’s up to the executive branch to provide the financial backing that both Chrysler and General Motors claim is essential to meet their immediate cash-flow needs. These funds are necessary to cover the bets they’ve already ante’d up for - but only until March 31st. Details to be filled in when the full news is broadcast later, we’re told.
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Back in April we called it The “R” Word. Now after six more difficult months, the popular media has come out of the closet and started using the real word - recession.

The election of President-Elect Obama is a mandate from the electorate that our government needs to act quickly to fix our sick economy. It’s no wonder. For months the daily news has been littered with downbeat stories about housing repossessions, business bankruptcies, plant closings, job layoffs. On the economic front, there has been mighty little to cheer about.

For now, I’ll stick to a subject that is close to my heart by restricting my comments to the aviation industry.
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Can anyone argue that the difficulties of the US banking system is having a profound effect on the general public? Even those of us who have yet to lose a cent because of a failed bank remain deeply concerned about the likelihood of a stalled economy wth credit shortages and the prospects for higher taxes to finance the government’s emergency loan guarantees. The slowdown is already here and consumer sentiment is in the tank.

For the past three months sales of software in general and in our case flight simulation add-ons have been slowing. In early May we lanched several new titles and they have yet to take off as we expected. Either the public doesn’t like our new add-ons or they are sitting with the hands in their pockets. While sales haven’t dried up totally, we are still 30% below the norm.
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It was just a few weeks ago, that we witnessed how the Federal Reserve and the Department of Treasury jumped in to bail out Bear Stearns. Fed Chairman Bernanke told us that it would have been disasterous to the economy to let the big investment bank fail.

Earlier this month we saw the Fed step up at the last minute to rescue both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both of these quasi-public organizations just about bought the bullet. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson told us this was the only prudent thing to do - the exact remedy to show support in an unstable market.
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We started Abacus in 1978 when most people hadn’t even heard about the personal computer. We founded our company to produce a few products for a very small but promising market. Developers such as ourselves formed a tight circle around a few brand names - Dec, Altair, Radio Shack, Apple, Commodore, to name a few - to write software to get the personal computers to do fun or useful activities.

At first, a corner of our kitchen and the basement formed the premises for Abacus which was a part-time operation while I continued a full-time job as a system analyst. In a short while, the Commodore Pet computer proved to be a market success which in turn pulled Abacus up by the bootstraps. It was then that I made the risky decision to leave my secure position with a large international corporation to venture out into the unknown world of self-employment … and out of the house too.
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