In 1988 Systems Union (along with Coda) became one of the first European accounting software companies to establish a business in the USA.

In fact, I was Systems Union Inc. (SUI) and SUI was originally located in a shared New York townhouse at 248 East 48th Street between 2nd and 3rd.Occasionally I got Katharine Hepburn's mail (I think she kept a house at 248 E 49th St.)

From here I flew all over the states evangelising SunSystems to everyone from Pepsi to Piggly Wiggly.

I learned to love the utility of the Eastern shuttle and the stability flying the last of the DC8s on United from New York to the West coast.

Now despite being written in COBOL, SunSystems was way ahead of its time: fully multi currency with a single ledger design based on dimensional accounting (Acodes, Tcodes, etc). In the land of the greenback, steeped in the segmented account code, siloed accounting departments and batch posting this was a tough sell.

So I salute those brave CIOs and CFOs that ignored that powerful homespun legacy and went with what - in accounting software terms anyway - was the 'disruptive' option.