The executive was bullish on the product’s performance for the year ended September 30. The French economy held down the rate of increase in sales in the product’s home country, pulling that down to 5 percent worldwide. However, sales rose by 17 percent elsewhere and there are now 3,700 customers in 56 customers with revenue from outside of France representing 43 percent of the total. Berruyer was comfortable with the pace of growth of Sage One, its Internet-based application for small businesses. There are now 7,500 paying customers in the United Kingdom, compared to 1,000 a year ago 14 months ago with the annual run rate accelerating from 1,500 in the first half to 3,600 in the second half. However, Sage seems to be repositioning the product from being aimed primarily at the very smallest businesses to serving those with five to 25 employees. That will be the segment targeted by an advanced version of Sage One that will be introduced next year in the U.K. In the United States, growth for the cloud product will be slow. “Momentum will build gradually as we enhance our offering and more importantly, as we build our channels of distributions,” Berruyer said.