Fixed price against agreed scope, phased so you can stop between stages, and the same people supporting the system afterwards.
Request a free application review +44 (0)1293 562730Delivered work, not hours. Development and migration are quoted as a fixed price against an agreed scope, with phases, milestones, acceptance criteria and contingency set out before anyone starts.
That matters more on a cross-border programme than anywhere else, because the temptation with a large multi-country estate is to sell an open-ended engagement. We would rather define a phase, deliver it, and let you decide whether to commission the next one.
The initial review of your application is free of charge. If the honest answer is that you do not need a project this year, we will say so.
The team that delivers is the team that supports it afterwards. Powersoft is a small independent company that has consistently punched above its weight, and continuity is a large part of how.
We will be straightforward about it: Powersoft is a British company and has been based in West Sussex since 1986. We do not have offices across Europe, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
What we do have is a working day that overlaps almost entirely with yours. Central European Time is one hour ahead of us; Eastern European Time is two. When something goes wrong at eleven in the morning in Copenhagen or Warsaw, we are at our desks, not asleep. That is a meaningful difference from the offshore alternative, and it is the reason several of our long-standing clients are outside the UK.
Our office is a short drive from Gatwick, which makes getting to a European client for a workshop, a cutover or a difficult conversation genuinely practical rather than theoretical.
COWI in Denmark trusted us with the source of their Caretaker application through a three-phase programme. Teachers Assurance, Western University in Ontario and a bank in Kansas were all delivered from the same office.
Distance is a solved problem when the working day lines up and the people do not change.
The same four steps whether it is a fortnight of analysis or a multi-phase programme across several countries.
Focused discovery with your stakeholders to capture critical workflows, compliance constraints and what success looks like.
A full project plan and fixed-cost proposal defining phases, milestones, acceptance criteria and contingency.
Iterative, risk-aware delivery with controlled cutovers, continuous testing and a documented handover package.
SLA backed support, proactive maintenance and optional managed services once the project lands.
Engineering and construction — Denmark
The Caretaker application had been developed and maintained on PowerBuilder 7 and had never successfully migrated. MS SQL Server retrieval errors, an ODBC-only connection where a native driver was wanted, and broken translation software were all blocking it. We proposed a multi-phase approach with defined deliverables, which reduced the time we held the source and let COWI keep developing. Phase one migrated to the latest available release; phase two was bespoke software translating the application dynamically into any language; phase three rebuilt the interface for modern Windows.
Pensions and insurance — United Kingdom
A substantial PowerBuilder CRM and policy administration system from 2002 deployed with EAServer, previously maintained elsewhere. We were brought in on a small fixed price, no fix no fee basis to resolve a problem the previous supplier had left, then migrated the source to PowerBuilder 12.5 and EAServer 6.3.1 — rewriting legacy Java in PowerBuilder because it would not run under the newer EAServer — alongside Oracle 8 to Oracle 11 and a move off Windows 2000. Delivered on time and to plan. Still supported by Powersoft today.
Fintech — London and Latin America
Migrated from SQL Anywhere to SQL Server, then a .NET web and mobile front end integrated in real time to the PowerBuilder back office, supporting cross-border money transfer and their PSD2 approval.
Higher education — Ontario
Business knowledge extracted from a PowerBuilder application and the key business functions documented from the code. Delivered within quoted budget and on time.
Banking — Kansas, USA
PowerBuilder 6 migrated to the current release with a SQL Server upgrade, redesigned application security and the bank's own staff trained. On schedule and on budget.
Our history, our own products and our Sage development work are on the main Powersoft site.
Tell us the PowerBuilder version you are on, the database behind it, which countries it runs in and what is prompting the question. We will give you an honest read on your options, including whether the answer is to do nothing for now. The initial review of your application is free of charge.
Telephone: +44 (0)1293 562730
