Sage ERP X3 V6 (1-29-10)

1-29-10 Sage ERP X3 V6 Launch

Highlights: Sage has launched Sage ERP X3 V6 (background: The Sage Group acquired Adonix X3, a French company, in 2005, and introduced the X3 brand to North America in 2008). Sage positions X3 at the upper end of it’s ERP portfolio. The solution is geared to mid-market companies with complex global requirements, such as managing multi-country compliance and legislative issues, trade and supply issues, and other global processes. In the V6 release, Sage has focused on making the solution more user-centric, adding a new unified folder view across key business dimensions; enhanced reporting and business intelligence capabilities; and a Starter Kit to speed and smooth standardized enterprise implementation. V6 also sports seamless, integrated support for Microsoft Office 2007, and enables users to personalize their desktops.

Sage is recruiting partners for X3 that have the necessary domain expertise to implement a sophisticated solution for complex companies. The vendor is “aggressively” pursuing partners in North America in particular, looking for those that can make the required time, money and skills commitment to drive business in this more complex market. Sage and its X3 partners will target net-new Sage customers, but will also pursue Sage installed base migrations opportunistically.

Quick take: Sage needs to compete head-to-head with the likes of Microsoft Dynamics Axapta, Epicor, Infor, SAP and Oracle in this space. Sage must battle not only for customers, but for the relatively small pool of partners that are capable of making the significant investment necessary to sell to and serve businesses with complex global requirements. With so many ERP products in the Sage portfolio, and without deep pockets of a Microsoft, Oracle or SAP, it will be difficult for Sage to develop the channel that will be required to extend the X3 brand outside of its established European geographies.

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