SYS21 - Alliance 2002 - Peter Quinn letter

Here is the letter posted on the AnswerLink bulletin board from Peter Quinn
for those of you with no access to AnswerLink..

Paul.


Dear System21 Users,

I have just returned from a very successful Geac ALLIANCE worldwide user
conference held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. For the 150 or so
System21 customers that joined us there,
I hope you enjoyed this informative and collaborative event. For those of
you that were unable to attend, I thought I would summarize some of the many
positive things that were announced during ALLIANCE.

Right from the outset, Paul Birch, Geac's president and CEO, acknowledged
the challenges that we all face as a result of the uncertainty in today's
social and economic environment, but he reiterated Geac's commitment to the
continued delivery of the solutions, services and support needed to drive
value from your investments in Geac. While Geac is not immune to today's
pressures, Paul highlighted the fact that our fundamental financial health
is in good shape.

In the main System21 tent, we made several new announcements that will
benefit all System21 American customers. We have begun the implementation of
an integrated global operation for System21 Support, Research and
Development. Targeted for the end of July 2002, all System21 customers
worldwide will belong to one global community of users with the ability to
communicate and collaborate using Geac's internet-based AnswerLink support
tool. This will bring some 1,500 System21 customer organizations from all
industry sectors together to share ideas, request enhancements and, at the
same time, provide all customers with greater access to a highly skilled and
integrated team of System21 support staff. The Geac support team will have a
physical presence in all three major regions of the world - the Americas,
Europe and Asia Pacific - integrated via a single support infrastructure.
This will allow us to offer extended support coverage across multiple time
zones.

The integration of worldwide development processes will mean that key U.S.
requirements are reflected in core product developments from day one, and
delivered to U.S. customers in a timely and responsive way.

Our consulting team, based throughout the U.S., will continue to offer
high-quality business, application and technical services to our customers,
for both System21 and Geac's latest
commerce.connect eBusinessand supply chain applications.

During the course of the three-day ALLIANCE event, System21 users had the
chance to meet with staff from the Geac System21 American operations as well
as key staff from the System21 product development center, who presented all
of the major new products that are now available, including the Key
Performance Indicator FastPack, the new browser-based enCompass user
interface, our APS solution, and the commerce.connect application set.

Many of these were supported by case studies from customers already getting
advantage from the applications.

We also discussed the details behind the next major release of System21
(code-named Aurora and scheduled for release in the second quarter of
calendar 2003), along with many other solutions and new service offerings
being rolled out over the coming months. More details on Aurora will be
published on AnswerLink shortly.

Along with members of the international management team, I also had the
chance to meet many System21 user executives on a face-to-face briefing
basis over the three days and hear about their needs and challenges in
today's business environment, and gather ideas on how System21 can help. I
look forward to the opportunity to continue this executive level dialogue
with as many System21 customers as possible in the weeks to come.

I am glad to report that the feedback we have received so far has been very
positive. The investments made to System21 over the past 18 months are now
paying off, and the changes we plan for leveraging the global resources of
System21 across all customers have been very well received. The new product
and service plans demonstrate strong ROI and are seen as relevant to your
needs. Finally, I fervently believe that System21 is now well positioned to
provide the continued improvements in both value and service that you expect
from us. As always,
I would be very happy to respond to any questions you may have and can be
contacted either by email (peter.quinn@geac.com) or by telephone at
1-630-842-3378.

Thank you for your continued commitment to System21 and I wish you all a
prosperous future.

Yours sincerely,


Peter Quinn
General Manager, System21 Americas
Geac Enterprise Solutions