Information Technology Reference
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that want to grow faster. Without companies such as this, the software industry
would be smaller and less eclectic.
Archon Information Systems
Archon Information Systems is an interesting niche company, and the niche it oc-
cupies is municipal tax collection. Archon was founded in New Orleans, Louisi-
ana, in January 2008 by Brian P. Barrios, Beau L. Button, and William D. Sossam-
on. All three had worked in law firms in New Orleans that were involved in tax
matters.
The Archon business is driven by software, and its packages are widely used
by municipal governments. Its brand is CivicSource , which currently includes
CivicSource Administrator for property taxes and CivicSource Auctioneer for sup-
porting municipal auctions of foreclosed properties, which has had a distressing
increase in frequency due to the Great Recession and the bursting of the real estate
bubble. A third component is CivicSource Services, which supports routine mat-
ters of municipal tax offices.
This company illustrates the fact that software is moving into every aspect of
corporate and government activities. As software expands in use, more and more
niches such as property taxation are opening up for software entrepreneurs. This
decade is filled with new niche companies and new niches.
Canonical, Ltd.
Canonical is yet another niche company, and its particular niche involves the
Ubuntu operating system and open-source applications centering on the Ubuntu
version of Linux.
Canonical was founded in 2004 in London, England, by Mark Shuttleworth,
who was born and educated in South Africa. He had founded and sold a domain-
name registration company, which provided about $75 million in funds for other
business opportunities. Shuttleworth became famous by becoming a private astro-
naut who took an eight-day trip on a Soyuz spaceship to the international spacesta-
tion for a cost of about $20 million. He invested about $10 million into the creation
of Canonical.
At first, Canonical operated as a virtual company, with the staff working from
their own homes. However, in 2005, offices were acquired in London and later
in Montreal, Canada. Today, there are Canonical offices in about 30 countries, in-
cluding locations in Boston, Lexington, London, Taipei, Shanghai, SaƵ Paulo, and
the Isle of Man. Its total employment is about 500.
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