Sage ERP X3 and Netvibes unveil plans for Sage Enterprise Webtop TM: a new, unique way to create user centric Enterprise

Sage ERP X3 and Netvibes deliver major usability innovation for ERP, enabling enterprises to easily develop powerful widget dashboard applications to automate communications and collaboration, build stronger customer relationships and create personalized workforce tools

Paris, January 20, 2010. Sage, one of the world’s leading suppliers of business management software and services, today unveiled its new global mid-market ERP solution, Sage ERP X3 v6, developed for growing companies with sophisticated, international requirements. Sage Enterprise Webtop TM, an upcoming extension to Sage ERP X3, which can operate on the cloud or on premise, was also exclusively previewed.

Sage Enterprise Webtop TM has been developed through collaboration with Netvibes, a pioneer of personal dashboard publishing platforms for the web. It enables any user to instantly create their own personalized widget dashboard applications to manage everything from sales and HR to customer relationships. With an innovative and intuitive drag-and-drop interface the partnership demonstrates Sage ERP X3’s commitment to accessibility, ease of use and simplicity.

“Sage ERP X3 v6 has been built around the user and we have placed great emphasis on ensuring it can adapt to the way each user works. Too often ERP users have had to adapt to the way their applications work but our vision is for customers to have a completely personalized experience, where they can tailor Sage ERP X3 to their exact needs. Through innovations such as Sage Enterprise Webtop TM we are delivering on this vision,” said Emmanuel Obadia, Senior Vice President, Sage ERP X3. “Sage Enterprise Webtop TM will enable any employee, team and permitted external stakeholder to create their own personal dashboards, ensuring they always have the perfect tools for their job or relationship."

Scheduled with the next point release of Sage ERP X3, due later this year, Sage Enterprise Webtop TM is powered by Wasabi, Netvibes highly acclaimed fifth generation dashboard and widget publishing engine. Combining the latest personalization and real-time technologies with the powerful new Sage ERP X3 platform it creates a new solution that bridges the gap between personal Web 2.0 applications and enterprise systems. In just minutes any individual or team in the extended enterprise can build their own personalized workplace dashboard where they can manage all of their real-time feeds, ERP tools and status reports, activity feeds, social networks, email, documents and much more - all in one place.

"As we enter the real-time era, modern information workers are struggling to manage an ever growing myriad of feeds, updates, news searches and new enterprise tools. It's an endless and fatiguing cycle of checking email, searching for files, switching between applications and catching up with the latest news," said Freddy Mini, CEO, Netvibes. "Sage Enterprise Webtop TM is the first user personalized enterprise dashboard solution that promises to deliver the right tools and the right information to the right people at exactly the right time, to break this fatigue cycle and boost productivity, by combining Netvibes personalization technology with the power of Sage ERP X3."

Sage Enterprise Webtop TM helps reduce complexity, increase productivity and make everyday tasks easier. For example dashboards can be used to help:

• Enterprise Customers: View and share customer information, requests and updates in real-time to create improved customer experiences through customer self-service dashboards.
• Enterprise responsiveness: Monitor hundreds of client and competitor news and Twitter feeds easily, all at a glance, all in one place.
• Extended Enterprise: Share processes and custom access to invoices, payments and reports with suppliers and partners. Create self-serve dashboards that enable extended enterprise partners to self manage their most common requests in real-time.
• Internal Teams: Offer personalized HR dashboards, where employees can access and manage benefits, view company news and much more. Create team dashboards for sales teams where each user can manage customers and prospects, track sales targets and manage everyday team communications and status updates.

Sage Enterprise Webtop TM will be offered as a SaaS or on premise extension to Sage ERP X3 and will feature:

• Drag-and-Drop Publishing: Netvibes award-winning design and publishing tools make it easy and intuitive for any user to build powerful real-time dashboards in just minutes, with zero programming required
• Sage Enterprise Widget Pack: Professional workplace widgets that let users rapidly and securely access Sage ERP X3 critical business information, perform database queries, view customer information, manage extended enterprise relationships and more
• Self-Service Licenses: Publish self-serve dashboards for the extended enterprise that enable partners to access invoices, payments, reports and more
• Strategic Support: As an extension of Sage ERP X3, Sage will provide the same world-class training and strategic design to ensure the ease and success of every implementation
• Developer's Network: Sage partners will soon be able to create and offer new workplace tools on Sage Enterprise Webtop TM. They will leverage the generic Sage ERP X3 widgets to create thousands of industry, role and customer specific widgets, tapping into a new revenue opportunity.
• Massive Built-in Widget Library: Enterprises can draw from more than 185,000 official widgets and feeds

About Netvibes

Founded in 2005, Netvibes pioneered the first personal dashboard publishing platform for the Web. For consumers, Netvibes.com is the most awarded startpage where millions of people around the world personalize and publish all aspects of their daily digital lives. For agencies and publishers, Netvibes’ universal widget technology (UWA), widget distribution services and Premium Dashboards help rapidly deliver brand observation rooms and user-personalized marketing campaigns. For companies, Netvibes Enterprise delivers secure, scalable personal workspaces, portals and industry dashboards.

Today, Netvibes powers personalization for more than 1000+ of the world's leading brands, interactive agencies, government organizations, non-profits and enterprises--serving half a billion widgets every month. Netvibes (http://www.netvibes.com) has offices in Paris, London and San Francisco.

About The Sage Group plc

The Sage Group plc is a leading global supplier of business management software and related products and services, principally for small to medium-sized enterprises. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989. Sage has 6.1 million customers and 13,400 employees worldwide. We operate in over 24 countries covering the UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, India and China. For further information please visit www.sage.com.

About Sage ERP X3

Sage ERP X3 is a dedicated solution for mid-market companies with international demands. Over 2,700 customers representing 150,000 users worldwide already chose Sage ERP X3 because it is easy to use, fast to deploy and cost effective. For more than 10 years Sage ERP X3 has been a proven and comprehensive ERP solution addressing mid-market companies specific requirements and challenges in various industries from manufacturing, services to distribution and many more. Sage ERP X3 is present in 50 countries and counts a network of 1,500 Sage professionals and 150 partners in its ecosystem.

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sageerpx3

Press contacts

Sage

For all media and IT industry analyst enquiries please contact:
Damien Louvet
damien.louvet@sage.com
Tel: + 33 (0) 1 41 66 25 14
Sage France media site
Cora Béghin
+ 33 (0) 1 41 66 24 82
cora.beghin@sage.com

Netvibes
Vincent Chang
vincent@netvibes.com, +1 415 806 1769