X3 Definition and History

What is Sage X3?

Sage X3 is an enterprise business management software suite that includes integrated functionality for financial management, sales, customer service, distribution, inventory, and manufacturing, and business intelligence.

Sage X3 is web-based and browser agnostic and responsive on mobile devices. It is also configurable to company requirements, user roles, and preferences. Visual processes, automated workflows and alerts, document management, and communication tools are features available in the system.

Sage X3 can be deployed…

• on-premises
• as a service in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud managed by Sage
• as a service in a third-party cloud 

Sage X3 is designed to support global organizations with multiple companies, sites, languages, currencies, and legislations. Customizable add-on tools extend software capabilities, and it interfaces with third-party software including CRM, WMS, and e-commerce.

History of Sage X3

Most of the information here came from an interview with Dominique Bopp, who was employed by Adonix for 22 years.

1979

A small company was founded in Paris, France. The name of the company was SPEMI (Société Parisienne de Micro-Informatique), which can be translated as "Micro-computing Parisian Company ".

This company already worked on accounting, sales and purchases, payroll, and accounting packages on a proprietary system called SORD. Founded in 1970, SORD was a Japanese computer company who began building multi-user microcomputers before even the Microsoft revolution. SORD was an acronym for "Soft Hardware".

But on UNIX, at that time, SPEMI couldn't find a toolset that was sufficient to rewrite its software. Informix was considered, but the Informix development tool did not allow other partners to add safely personalization on a standard software. So, SPEMI decided to write its own tool, called ADONIX, acronym of "Accès aux DONnées sous unIX" (French), in English, "Access to Data on UNIX".

The company built its first ERP (enterprise resource planning) product based on the ADONIX platform, called Adonix Entreprise V2. The product had a full coverage, including distribution, accounting, payroll, but did not include manufacturing. The company, renamed Adonix, started to grow.

1985

When SORD was acquired by Toshiba in 1985, it became obvious to SPEMI that it would have to move to a more open system, and it chose UNIX, because the last computer SORD launched was running on Unix System V. UNIX was, for SPEMI, the most promising OS for the future. Running on Windows came later, so SPEMI avoided all versions of Window prior to 3.1.

1997

In 1997, Adonix decided to become international. It acquired the company PRODSTAR, the vendor of an ERP called Prodstar 2 (abbreviated P2). P2 already had a manufacturing module, but it was based on microfocus cobol. Adonix decided to build the future ERP with a full coverage (manufacturing, finance, distribution), based on the Adonix technology (with a heavy investment on it), and include the features of P2 that were missing in Adonix V2.

2000

In 2000, Adonix released its first product. The internal name the team gave to the project seemed to inspire them as they worked.  The team reasoned that the successor to P2 and Adonix V2 should include a “3” in its name, and should also include an “X”, as a reference to Adonix. The result was X3. The developers liked the name because it suggested that the product gave the user “3 times more” than the other competitors. By the time of the release, X3 became the product name.

2005

In 2005, Sage acquired Adonix, and Adonix X3 became Sage ERP X3. Soon Sage saw the international capabilities that would allow X3 to become a global ERP solution positioned above their traditional accounting applications in each region.

2015

In 2015, Sage renamed the solution Sage X3. Also that year, beginning with Product Update 8, Sage launched Sage X3 Cloud, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) version of Sage X3. Sage X3 Cloud originally ran just on the AWS infrastructure, but was later expanded to permit Sage X3 Cloud to run on a third-party cloud. Sage X3 Cloud is billed on an annual subscription.

Sage X3 Cloud is aimed at businesses that value…

• ease of deployment
• lower up-front costs (servers, hardware, etc.)
• reduced need for in-house IT support and maintenance

Promoted Reasons to Choose the Cloud

Speed

• Ready-to-use infrastructure
• Faster deployment
• Faster delivery of new features

Simplicity

• Access to functionality on demand
• Always on the latest version
• Simpler software management
• Less dependency on IT resources
• Low, predictable cost

Flexibility

• No startup investment
• Reduced demand on in-house team
• Customization does not deviate from upgrade path
• Reduction in infrastructure costs

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Sage X3 and Sage Software are trademarks of Sage Software, Inc. Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Enterprise Manager and SQL Server Management Studio are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oracle is is a registered trademark or Oracle Corporation. All other product names used here are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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