Sage has announced the next major release of its flagship enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solution, ERP X3 V6 (version six) for use in mid to large sized business environments.
Himanshu Palsule, executive vice-president for Sage Business Solutions’ product and marketing strategy, said the ERP X3 product line is designed to help businesses boost their productivity and operational processes, save time, and reduce an organization’s total cost of ownership.
“We believe the next generation of ERP is becoming more user-centric and needs to interact with other tools within the organization such as SaaS-based (software-as-a-service) systems, Web 2.0 and BPM (business process management),” Palsule said. “Sage ERP X3 V6 is simple to use, rapid to implement, cost-effective and is also user and Web-centric.”
With global support features such as multi-countries, multi-companies and multi-entities, Alex Attal, general manager of ERP X3 for Sage, said the company is “proactively going after net new customer acquisitions with this release.” There’s no need to go after existing end-users with V6, but instead, partners should seek opportunities with new customers, he added.
Attal said currently, Sage has three active channel partners in Canada who are working with the Sage ERP X3 line.
“We’re looking for partners who can build a strong, consultative and servicing solutions-approach,” Attal said. “Partners who work in vertical markets would do well with this solution. Partners shouldn’t convince an existing customer to migrate to V6, just because they have a new product, but if customers want to upgrade, they can.”
Palsule said Sage is in the midst of “aggressively rolling out a partner program for Sage X3” and is currently looking for and is evaluating partners.
“We’re putting most of our efforts into education and certification because we understand there’s a need (for this),” he said. “We want to attract the right partner and right now, there are about half a dozen partners in Canada and the U.S. that we’re looking at bringing on board.”
Sage executives say the user interface of ERP X3 V6 is a “major revamp” compared to its prior version and can also support platforms which include, SQL Server 2008, Windows 2008, RedHat 5, Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7.
“The product is designed to be role-oriented and can be personalized with standard templates to help accelerate user adoption,” Palsule said. “V6 is all about reducing time and cost, helping business interoperate across locations and improving the customer experience. The product comes ready to use out of the box, or it can be tailored and integrated into more complex ERP implementations.”
The goal of the solution is to provide businesses with an all-encompassing view into their finance, sales, inventory, CRM, purchasing and manufacturing operations and processes, all from a single-view folder, Palsule explained.
Sage ERP X3 V6 is priced per user and will be made available to the U.S. and Canadian channels in the second quarter of this year.