Sage Software announced the promotion of Karl Grass to senior vice president and general manager of its Specialized Business Solutions unit. In his new role, Grass will assume a leadership role for Sage Abra HRMS, Sage FAS Fixed Assets, Sage Payroll Services and Sage TimeSheet, as well as additional products.Grass, who was named to Accounting Today's 2004 Top 100 Most Influential People list, will report to Jim Foster, Sage's executive vice president and general manager for Mid-Market Business Units.
Grass previously served as vice president and general manager for the company's Sage Abra HRMS and Sage Payroll Services businesses, which are part of Specialized Business Solutions.
"We are fortunate to have executives of Karl's caliber who continue to deliver on Sage Software's legacy of excellence in all areas of product and service delivery," said Foster. "Since joining the company earlier this year, Karl has already achieved much success. Now all of our specialized solutions customers will benefit from his leadership."
Before joining Sage Software in February 2006, Grass was vice president and general manager of Intuit's Professional Tax Group in Dallas, and prior to that he was a partner at former Big Five firm Arthur Andersen, serving in a general manager role for Andersen Technology Enterprises - the company's packaged software business in Sarasota, Fla.
Grass will continue to work out of Sage's St. Petersburg, Fla., office, where several Specialized Business Solutions teams are located.
Separately, parent Sage Group Plc agreed to acquire Tampa, Fla.-based Emdeon Practice Services Inc., which sells practice management software and patient data systems to doctors' offices. Sage will pay about $567 million in cash to EPS's parent company, Elmwood Park, N.J-based Emdeon Corp., and at press time, the deal was scheduled to close in September.
For the 2005 fiscal year, EPS had revenues of approximately $300 million and about 20,000 mostly small and midsized customers.
EPS's medical services software is used in administrative and financial processes - such as the scheduling of appointments, the handling of prescriptions and billing - and has capabilities for the creation and management of electronic health records.
