Sage to Launch Hosted Services for Sage MIP Fund Accounting to Help Nonprofits Save Time and Money, Gain Anywhere-Anytime Access to Vital Business Management Applications

DENVER, CO--(Marketwire - November 17, 2008) - Sage North America announced today at Sage Summit 2008, its annual customer conference, that it will introduce hosting services next month for Sage MIP Fund Accounting. The hosted services will help organizations using Sage MIP Fund Accounting to minimize the information technology (IT) costs and resources required to maintain their accounting software, while gaining convenient anywhere-anytime access to vital business management applications. Sage MIP Fund Accounting, the company's award-winning software for nonprofit financial management, will continue to be available as a licensed software product, but customers will now have more choice about how they deploy their accounting system.

Randy Johnston, executive president for K2 Enterprises, a technology consultancy serving the accounting profession, believes hosting is one of the most cost-effective and convenient strategies that an organization can use.

"Taking advantage of hosting services is an excellent way for nonprofit accounting professionals to be good stewards of their organizations' resources, while also gaining more time to focus on their core competencies and their nonprofits' missions," said Johnston. "If an organization has multiple offices or team members who need to access data from anywhere, hosting can provide that flexibility. Hosting also enables rapid deployment, unattended backups, and high availability. As an added benefit, hosting may provide more security for your data, particularly for organizations with limited or no in-house IT resources, since trained professionals at the hosting company are responsible for protecting the data of your organization and others."

A little more than one year ago, the American Lung Association (ALA) standardized their nationwide organization with Sage MIP Fund Accounting in a hosted environment, which can be accessed anytime, anywhere, over the Internet via a Citrix XenApp™ (formerly Presentation Server™). "Being Web-based, our new Sage MIP Fund Accounting system opens up possibilities for the accounting staff to be based outside of the main office, or to work from home or on the road," said Rusty Burwell, ALA's vice president of data and technology.

"Grant management and fundraising are our primary functions, and Sage MIP Fund Accounting is core to accomplishing them," said William A Clark, PhD, executive director for the Research & Education Foundation of the Michael Reese Medical Staff in Chicago. "Not having an IT department can make properly maintaining the software more difficult. Moving it to a hosted environment has the potential to solve several of our issues, since system upgrades, program updates, and secure backup would be handled by the host. Remote access to our accounting system and reports outside of our LAN are other potential benefits."

Sage has been testing the hosting services with Sage MIP Fund Accounting users for several months. To help organizations better understand the various types of hosted options, a special educational session, titled "Sage MIP Fund Accounting: The Wide World of Hosting," will be held at this week's Sage Summit 2008. Attendees will get first-hand hosting information, including security and compliance considerations, from Grant Howe, vice president of R&D for Sage's Nonprofit Solutions business unit.

Sage develops several award-winning software solutions used by nonprofit and government organizations across the U.S. and Canada, including Sage MIP Fund Accounting and Sage Fundraising 50. For more than 30 years, Sage has been helping organizations further their missions and better serve constituents through the use of technology. Thousands of nonprofits manage their operations -- from fund accounting, fundraising, and donor management, to payment processing, human resources, health care, and payroll -- using easy-to-use, scalable, and customizable software and services from Sage.

First introduced in 1982, Sage MIP Fund Accounting has been honored with numerous awards, including perfect five-star product reviews from top accounting industry publications, such as CPA Technology Advisor, and has received three consecutive Campbell Awards from Campbell Rinker for exceptional ratings in the Nonprofit Accounting Software Survey, a nationwide survey of accounting software users.

Hosting services for Sage MIP Fund Accounting will be available in December 2008. Nonprofit Solutions customers wanting to learn more about whether remote hosting is right for their organization can call 866-564-2378. For more information about Sage's Nonprofit Solutions, please visit http://www.sagenonprofit.com and http://www.sagesoftware.com, or call 800-647-3863.

About Sage North America

Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. At Sage, we live and breathe business every day. We are passionate about helping our customers achieve their ambitions. Our range of business software and services is continually evolving as we innovate to answer our customers' needs. Our solutions support accounting, operations, customer relationship management, human resources, time tracking, merchant services and the specialized needs of the construction, distribution, healthcare, manufacturing, nonprofit and real estate industries. Sage North America employs approximately 5,000 people and supports nearly 2.9 million small and medium-size business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 14,800 people and supports 5.7 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the web site at www.sagesoftware.com or call 866-308-2378.

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Contact Information: Press Contact: Cynthia Sutton Sage Software (703) 793-2700 x 3032 cynthia.sutton@sage.com