Australia is 'Microsoft country' says Sage MD

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 12 April 2011 16:53

Sage might be platform agnostic, but its Australian customers aren't.

Although Sage Business Solutions' software can run on Windows or Linux, there is "relatively little" local interest in the Linux versions, managing director Mike Lorge told iTWire.

And while the software can use Oracle, Pervasive PSQL or Microsoft SQL Server for database management - the company optimises the interface for each product to get better performance then generic SQL queries would provide - Australia "is Microsoft country" and even where Oracle would be more suitable, local users tend to use SQL Server regardless.

Mr Lorge explained that Sage strongly encourages customers with large amounts of data to at least consider using Oracle, but that advice is rarely taken.

The company takes a similarly product-agnostic view of virtualisation, and all of its products are certified on VMware and Citrix. Although large managed service providers run Sage software in virtualised environments, "customers that are installing in their own environments largely don't virtualise," Mr Lorge said.

He believes that is partly because Sage's products are largely aimed at the second and third tiers of the market rather than tier one enterprises, but also because organisations are less likely to virtualise ERP software than they are CRM and some other applications.

Sage Business Solutions product lineup in Australia comprises Sage ERP Accpac, Sage ERP X3, Sage Timberline Office, Sage ACT!, Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM.