The Sage Group Plc, which announced in July that year-end earnings would fall below expectations, showed off six additions to its accountancy range at the end of last month. The extra modules and versions are due to ship before year-end. At the same time the company gave a preview of the Windows version of Telemagic, the contact management software acquired from Remote Control International last year (CI No 2,204). Shipment of this has slipped a bit and is now expected early next year. The accounting software releases encompass all three of Sage’s existing offerings, but it is the main Sterling +2 range gets the biggest facelift. The changes will start this month, of a what Sage describes as a dramatically enhanced second Windows version of the product. As described, however it mainly knocks off some rough corners to make it a better-behaved Windows application. So, with version two comes the ability for users to have two reports open on the screen concurrently, and the user also gets a nice new button-bar. Alongside the stand-alone version, Sage has also been developing a networked multi-user version, to be launched in November, together with a developer’s kit and a Windows-based payroll package; Sage Sterling +2 Payroll set for the following month. The kit sounds like good news for Sage resellers’ margins as it is being touted as a way for them to build vertical applications around the Sterling core, or link the accounts package to third-party applications. These main additions to the line are accompanied by other new products at either end of Sage’s range. At the low end the MoneyWise package picks up a invoicing module for UKP30; for its corporate users Sage has built an executive information add-on for Sovereign – its highest end MS-DOS and Unix-based offering. The trouble with Sovereign is the lack of nice, flashy presentation graphics beloved of go-ahead finance directors. The executive information system package remedies this by giving said director a Windows package that can interrogate Sovereign over the network and produce all manner of graphs and tables. To start with, the executive system will come with a number of these graphical reports pre-configured – just how many is still up in the air – however the company is promising a developers kit for producing customised executive information system displays. Finally comes a Windows version of Telemagic, the contact management software. Delivery of this has slipped rather, originally it was scheduled for last month, now it is not due until early 1994. The new version will have the promised database links to Sterling +2, but will lack any attachment to Sovereign, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne company says.
