£20.6M Acquisition of Ubiquis SA

Sage Group PLC
16 March 2000



The Sage Group plc announces the acquisition of Ubiquis SA for £20.6 million

The Sage Group plc ('Sage'), a leading supplier of accounting software and
related products for personal computers, announces that it has agreed to
acquire Ubiquis SA of France, a provider of sophisticated e-business solutions
for small to medium sized businesses ('SMEs').  The consideration of £20.6
million will be met by the issue of 2,529,847 Sage shares.  The acquisition
will complete on Monday 20 March 2000 when the consideration shares are
listed.

The Ubiquis product range provides small to medium sized businesses with a
sophisticated web trading tool, which is a fully integrated, scalable, and
multi-lingual e-business solution.  Using the Ubiquis technology, an SME can
build a fully functional trading web site, the transactional activity on which
is seamlessly integrated into the SME's underlying accounting system.  The
technology can be used to create a Business to Consumer or Business to
Business web site, as appropriate.

The technology has been architected in such a way that, with minimal
development effort, it can be applied to create e-business solutions for any
SME accounting system.  To date Ubiquis' technology has been applied
successfully to Sage Line 100 and Sage Line 500 Integrale, two major product
lines owned by the Group's French subsidiary, Sage France.  The Ubiquis
technology will be made available to other operating companies in the Sage
Group, providing them with a powerful e-business solution for their customers.

Following the Ubiquis acquisition, Sage will have a choice of two levels of e-
business solutions to offer its 2 million customers around the world:

  Web Site Creator and Web Trader, two ASP-based web site entry-level
  development tools, designed for smaller companies

  Ubiquis technology designed for small to medium sized businesses which
  require a more sophisticated e-business solution, integrated into their
  underlying accounting systems and tailored to meet their individual
  requirements.

Commenting on the acquisition, Paul Walker, Chief Executive of Sage, said:

'The acquisition of Ubiquis represents an important step forward in our
Internet strategy.  We have always said that our primary goal must be to look
after the interests of our customers as they enter the Internet era.  The
combination of Ubiquis' Internet technology and Sage's market-leading
accounting products gives us a comprehensive e-business offer for our 2
million customers around the world.  Our value added reseller community will
be instrumental in delivering and implementing these e-business solutions.'

Enquiries:

The Sage Group plc                           0191 255 3000
Paul Walker, Chief Executive                 
Aidan Hughes, Finance Director               
Web-site address:                            
http://www.Sage.com
                                             
Financial Dynamics                           020 7831 3113
Giles Sanderson                              
Jon Earl