UNITED KINGDOM, 18 July 2000 - Sage (SES) today announced the launch of its Web Sales software designed to help mid-market businesses bring the convenience of e-commerce to their customers.

Integrating seamlessly to the Sage suite of products, Web Sales allows orders to be placed real-time, via the Internet, directly into their SES back office system, ensuring the order is immediately visible to planning and execution systems.

“Our recent research showed that mid-market businesses are having to take notice of e-commerce opportunities now,” said Andy Gass, managing director, Sage. “We are addressing this need with software that enables these companies to extend their back-office systems and provide the convenience of on-line trading to their customers.”

Aimed at facilitating business-to-business trading in the Internet age, the flexibility of Web Sales means companies can streamline procurement processes and reduce the cost of handling orders. 

“Web Sales is integrated with IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite and Microsoft Site Server Commerce Edition. This ensures a rapid deployment and full integration between the web site and the Sage back office system,” said Andy Gass.

Benefits of Web Sales software include enabling customers to browse products, make orders, and track delivery over the Internet using information retrieved directly from a company’s database. Displaying this information dynamically means companies can then update their ‘web shop’ with new offers instantly to stay ahead of the competition and ensure the latest products and prices are correctly displayed. The software can also be customised to provide additional functionality such as recognising customers and automatically offering price discounts or special offers where appropriate.

“The Internet is bringing a whole new approach and presenting huge opportunities for companies to make available their products and services,” said Andy Gass. “Web Sales provides an effective solution with rapid installation to enable companies to take advantage now. ”

“By opening up the Internet as a business channel, Web Sales will help businesses lower existing handling costs, serve customers more efficiently and increase customer satisfaction by providing access to information and ordering services at any time.”

Notes to editors:

Web Sales will be shipping September 2000. Web Sales is one component in a trilogy of web-based offerings from Sage. The Sage Web Enterprise suite of products includes Web Client, providing direct access to the SES system via an Internet browser, and Web Portal, a centralised and easy to use means of accessing business information and resources. The Sage Web Enterprise products are part of Sage Enterprise Solutions’ strategy to provide practical web solutions which complement and extend the current business working and processes providing an open and fully integrated e-business solution that is cost effective and easy to deploy and use.

Sage is a market leader in providing web-enabled financial, distribution and manufacturing software to mid-range businesses. Formed after the acquisition of Tetra International by the Sage Group in 1999, Sage is now part of the world’s leading supplier of accounting and business management software. Sage Group plc is an established FTSE 100 company with more than two million customers world-wide. Based in Maidenhead, Berkshire, Sage has 7,000 customers with sites in 80 countries and installations ranging from four to over 1000 concurrent users. Further information on Sage can be found at http://enterprise.sage.com.

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