You may have received, or will soon be receiving, an email from Sage Software announcing the phase-out of their Extended Solutions catalogue. We wanted to let you know that we are aware of the announcement and are actively working on developing a game plan for those whom it affects.

Why is Sage phasing out Extended Solutions?
Sage's reasoning on this decision was a combination of adding value for all users and to better utilize valuable development and support resources. Recognizing the importance of continuing to add value for all users of MAS 90/200, Sage determined the simplest and quickest way to add new features and functions was to program in functionality built into some of the most popular Extended Solutions titles. Then, by retiring the remaining Extended Solutions titles, they would be able to re-allocate the development and support resources used to maintain titles currently used by just a handful of users, over to development and support projects that would benefit all users.

What does it mean to you?
Some of the most popular titles will be incorporated into the base product via updates beginning with the v4.4 release planned for early 2010 and continuing over future releases spread out over the next 18 months (see the list of Extended Solutions titles affected). This means that once the functionality is incorporated into the base product, you will stop paying annual subscription fees on these titles.

The remainder of the Extended Solutions catalogue will be retired by Sage. However, some of the functionality in these titles may actually be made obsolete by some of the new scripting and customization tools being added to the system in the v4.4 release. We will look at each title you own to determine if the functionality can be accomplished using some other tool in the system.

For those retired Extended Solutions titles whose functionality still requires true customization, Sage has released the source code to the Master Developer community. This means that there will likely be an organization (or even a handful of organizations) that will be picking up the support and maintenance on these titles. The details of how this transition will happen, and whether the cost will be the same, more or less than you are currently paying is still being worked out. We will continue to communicate as things develop.

Overall, we see this as a positive development, as it brings more functionality into the software for all users and puts the development and support of custom modifications back into the hands of the smaller, more aggressive and more responsive Master Developer community.

Further Information
We hope this clarifies the situation for you and puts your mind at ease, but if you would like further information, please don't hesitate to give Tony Bella or Mike Fitzgerald a call at 781-232-1212.