“PROJECT
PENGUIN”
Scientific & Chemical Supplies
Ltd, the
Philip Palser, Operations Manager
writes:
“As members of ISTUG we have direct
access into Sage Enterprise Solutions thinking and the direction of their
product development, which helps us with our own company IT strategy.
Having an end user “voice” gave us
extra reassurance when we faced a major investment in our core systems late in
2002, which led us to be the first company to upgrade to the Linux version of
Sage Line 500 software.”
Nicknamed “Project Penguin”
internally, the company wanted to build on the success of their Unix C-ISAM
based Sage software, without some of the reliability and stability problems of
other operations systems.
When Sage plc announced a major
partnership with IBM and launched the Linux version of their CS3/Sage Line 500
medium range enterprise software, it was the natural choice.
“Linux was a natural development on
our experiences of Unix. We operate in a very competitive environment, and need
reliable systems to sit in the corner and process high volumes of customer
orders. As members of ISTUG we can openly talk through any issues and problems
we have with the product, with other end-users, and raise these directly with
Sage themselves. We appreciate Sage wanting to listen to customers directly.
Collectively the end users
represented by ISTUG can share experiences, good and bad of working with the Sage
product, and also the huge variety of bolt-on software now available, from CRM,
reporting software, to specialised logistics planning software. When one
company has a problem, there are often several others who already have a
solution, having worked through the issue themselves. This knowledge pool and
resource is invaluable when managing sophisticated software.”