KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: Ubikwiti, a leading designer and developer of web hosted DIY component-based business application software, has released first "non-beta" release of its anti-recessionary, low cost, web-hosted accounting and business management software for self-employed business people, small businesses and non-profit organizations.

"In addition to providing richly featured software-as-a-service to self-employed businesspeople, small businesses and non-profit organizations, the new release has also been designed to meet the accounting and business management needs of people setting up a first business, possibly as a result of loss of employment," said Tim Loving, Ubikwiti CEO.

“The unprecedented global economic crisis has made millions of people jobless. Many of them were white-collar workers. Some were earning up to six figures. White-collar unemployment has risen faster in the past year than in any other recession dating to at least the 1970s. Moreover, white-collar workers also tend to form a disproportionate share of the long-term unemployed. 
 
He referred to the recent US Department of Labor report in which the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the number of unemployed increased to 11.1 million in December 2008, an increase of 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) doubled in 2008 from 1.3 million to 2.6 million.

Loving noted that many unemployed people have marketable skills and experience suitable for a self-employed business, such as freelance consulting. "The Internet provides a marketplace for advertising and promoting their skills and services. What they may not have is hands-on capability to setup and operate an accounting and business management system. Ubikwiti's DIY approach to setting up, customizing and operating software means accounting knowledge or technical programming skills are
unnecessary, entry costs are zero and operating costs are fixed at a low monthly amount," he said.

Ubikwiti enables businesspeople to quickly and easily define, configure, launch, modify and enhance business applications to meet their own business needs at the lowest possible cost. You first select a business template and then add additional free business components from U-KwikShop to tailor the template to their needs, using "point and click".

Ubikwiti applications interface easily to free office productivity tools, social networking sites, web hosting services (such as online stores) and online payroll services.