Sage acquires business intelligence software specialist IntelligentApps

Sage (UK) Limited has announced the acquisition of IntelligentApps Holdings Limited, which is the holding company of IntelligentApps Limited, a developer of business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM) software.

Through this acquisition, Sage will obtain a market-leading product that enables customers of Sage accounting and CRM software to access data from their desktops or over the Web in an easy to use Excel or Web browser interface.

IntelligentApps modules consist of IntelligentApps Excel and Web Server Edition products and are used worldwide for applications ranging from Financial / Sales Analysis, Basel II Reporting, Business Performance Dashboards and in-depth transactional analyses of financial and CRM data sources.

IntelligentApps is already used by more than 300 customers including existing Sage Line 200 and 500 customers where the product is branded Sage BI. For the last 12 months Sage and IntelligentApps have been developing the Sage BI product for Sage mid-market customers and this acquisition will enable Sage to extend this 'out of the box' functionality to all its customers, whatever their size.

Gavin May, Sage (UK) Limited Business Development Director, commented: "The acquisition of IntelligentApps is a further step in Sage's strategy to provide our customers with key technologies and specialised software that integrates to their existing Sage accounting and CRM software. Sage currently has almost 600 000 customers in the UK and the most recent TN Sofres survey conducted by Sage UK rates BI as the third most pressing issue facing these businesses today, behind CRM and Attracting New Customers.

May added: "IntelligentApps has over 22 years' experience in the business intelligence and corporate performance management markets. They have developed a state of the art set of products that can extract data from accounting, CRM or other systems to provide a powerful management dashboard for business users and a product set that will at last truly deliver on the promise of 'business intelligence to the masses'.

"At Sage, we view business intelligence as fundamentally important to customers at all levels and this acquisition is one of the cornerstones of our strategy to offer a complete business management software solution to our existing and new customers. We welcome IntelligentApps' corporate customers and are looking forward to helping them extend their lead through innovative development at the enterprise level while extending the range of customers and applications through Sage UK's product lines."

IntelligentApps' Paul Martin concluded: "Sage's brand and global presence will allow us to deploy our products across a wide range of vertical markets, industries and application areas. The combination of Sage and IntelligentApps will benefit companies ranging from corner shops to corporations by allowing them to run their businesses at a fraction of the cost, complexity and implementation timescales of competitive products."

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