Our Strategy

As Sage developers we are well aware of the plethora of products available. For example, if you visit www.sage.co.uk/productsandservices/home.aspx you will get an idea of what is available from the Sage stable alone. These products employ a wide variety of technologies, languages, operating systems etc. and perform many different roles. It is not commercially viable, nor of benefit to our customers, for us to go down all the potential avenues which are open to us. If you like, we have to do a cost-benefit analysis on the various options. For example, whilst the platform might be of interest to the technically minded, the cost of a change, and the disruption which goes with it, has to be justified by the benefit to end users.

Over the years Sovereign LAW, and, for that matter Sage Line 100, has proved remarkably resilient. One issue we recognise is ease of reporting, but that can be easily remedied by importing the data into Access or Excel, and querying it from within those products.


Sage R5 Construct
Sage Construct screen   Click image to enlarge
The strategy we have decided on is the same as Sage has adopted for its Construct product (which is about the same size as Sovereign LAW and fulfils a similar role, but for the construction industry instead of the legal profession). This strategy is to convert Sovereign LAW into a Microsoft based product known as R5, which integrates with either Sage Line 50 or Sage MMS (which is the successor to Line 100).

Whilst Sage has been selling R5 Construct for some time, we have until recently regarded R5 as 'work in progress' and have avoided launching R5 Sovereign LAW when the tool with which we are working is subject to change.

With the recent launch of the latest version of Construct and the promised release of the matching version of R5 in September 2006 we feel the time has now come when we can move forward with the project, and at the same time revamp Sovereign LAW to take account of the numerous regulatory changes which have either occurred recently or are about to occur. Work will begin on Sovereign LAW R5 immediately. Technically, the September 2006 version of R5 (v11.1) will be SQL 2005 and COM based, which means it will link most conveniently to either MMS v2 (COM) or retain a link to the current version of Sage Line 100.

17th July 2006



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