Sage Software recently held its annual partner conference, Sage Insights, in Washington D.C. While the company also holds customer conferences, Sage's reliance on its extensive partner network of retailers and systems integrators ensures that important announcements made at the partner conference are of interest to its end user customers. Key announcements included a new suite of small business applications, comprising tightly integrated products from among Sage's vast enterprise application portfolio, and the official release of a comprehensive three year strategic direction for its customer relationship management (CRM) products (Sage SalesLogix, Sage CRM and ACT! By Sage).

Enter, the Extended Enterprise Suite

The flagship announcement at Insights was the official launch of the Sage MAS Extended Enterprise Suites. Centered on the company's popular SMB ERP products, Sage MAS 90 ERP and Sage MAS 200 ERP, the suites combine financial, operational, customer relations and business intelligence applications to integrate business management processes and workflow across an entire organization. While European Sage customers have had the option of various regional integrated suites for some time now, this marks the official release of such suites in North America, and available to Sage's North American partners to resell and customize for end user organizations.