Stories about: Sage Group

SAP has announced it will add new e-commerce and Web-based CRM (customer relationship management) functionality to its Business One applications suite for small to midsize customers.

Some business application vendors see it as highly fragmented, others as inherently complex. Donna Troy sees the small and medium-size business (SMB) market simply as "a huge opportunity."

Sage Software embarked on a new vertical industry strategy for its Act Premium contact and customer management product, releasing an offering for the real-estate market Monday.

ERP spending grew at a healthy 14 percent rate last year, but the market isn't expected to sustain that growth rate in 2005, according to new research. Looking ahead, AMR Research expects ERP revenue growth to slow to just under 3 percent this year.

Customer relationship management is still misunderstood in typical small-to-medium sized business in Australia with many organizations still struggling to use it effectively.

When John Schindler thinks of enterprise resource planning software, business flexibility isn't exactly the first phrase that leaps to mind, he says. But increasingly, that's what he and other users are demanding from their ERP vendors. "We're in a growth mode, and the business needs are changing," says Schindler, CIO at Kichler Lighting Group. The problem is that today's ERP systems haven't adapted quickly enough to those change requirements.

Best Software launched this week an overhaul of its Act contact management software, adding to the product line a second version with more scalability and advanced functionality.

Microsoft is slowing down development work on a new family of its business applications -- known as "Project Green" -- and is instead focusing on the products it currently sells.

Looking to expand its market, NetLedger will launch NetSuite, an online applications suite targeted at midsize companies with up to 500 employees, on Monday.

Microsoft has completed its acquisition of Danish software company Navision in a stock deal valued at US$1.45 billion, the Redmond, Washington, software giant announced Thursday.

Software maker The Sage Group PLC is trying to persuade European competition authorities to investigate the proposed US$1.3 billion takeover of rival Navision A/S by Microsoft Corp. Danish authorities already have begun an inquiry regarding competition issues at the behest of Sage.