Here’s another quick update to today’s news of Morningstar’s purchase of FCSI.  Dusty Huxford sent the message copied below through the FCSI alerts listserv.  I am subscribed to the alerts, though I didn’t receive his message today.  I had to get it through other resources.  I must not be a valued FCSI client!

August 11, 2008

Dear FCSI client,

I am writing to make you aware of some exciting news. We are pleased to tell you that Morningstar is acquiring Financial Computer Support, Inc. (FCSI).

For more than two decades, Morningstar and FCSI have been advocates for the independent advisor, providing powerful technology and content to help independents stay competitive and serve clients better. Given Morningstar’ s reputation and history in serving advisors, we believe our customers will continue to receive quality service and innovative solutions under the Morningstar brand. These common goals were important factors in our decision to have Morningstar acquire our company.

Morningstar plans to incorporate dbCAMS+ into the Morningstar Principia product line and rebrand it within the next year. By bringing our respective software applications together in a single product suite, you will have powerful options for integrating investment data and analytics with client performance reports. Rest assured that Morningstar has no immediate plans to change the functionality of dbCAMS+, and expects to invest in and grow the product over time. Although I know that many of our customers are already users of Principia, you will not have to purchase the entire Principia suite to continue to use the dbCAMS+ functionality.

The NDM product line will not be impacted at this time. We fully expect to provide ongoing support and maintenance as we clarify our plans for the ProSource and Manager series in the near future.

As a valued client, it’s essential to us that we continue to provide superior service to you as we bring our two companies together. As part of the integration, and to help ensure a smooth transition, I plan to stay with
Morningstar for at least nine months.

We expect to complete this acquisition in a few weeks. For more information about the acquisition, please reference the attached press release. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact your FCSI account representative.

Although we still have many details to work out, we promise to keep you informed along the way. It has been a privilege serving you as a customer of FCSI, and I’m confident you will experience many benefits when we become part of Morningstar.

Sincerely,

David C. “Dusty” Huxford Jr.
President
Financial Computer Support, Inc.

It’s interesting that Dusty mentioned staying with Morningstar for at least nine months.  Is FCSI’s sale part of an exit strategy from the day-to-day management for Dusty? 

Even without Morningstar’s intervention, FCSI faces a big task over the next several years.  dbCAMS’ underlying data engine, Visual FoxPro, is scheduled to have its support lapse by Microsoft in 2015.  Will we see a dramatic change to the underlying architecture now that Morningstar has entered the picture?  Perhaps the program will join the 21st century with a transition to SQL.  Only time will tell.

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