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“Our businesses have delivered a resilient first half performance in challenging economic conditions as customers continued to rely on Sage as a trusted partner in running their business more efficiently in difficult markets. After a robust performance last year, we are now experiencing the effects of the weakening global economy in most of our markets, with customers delaying software purchasing decisions.However, demand for high-quality customer support remains strong. We are proactively managing our businesses for these demanding market conditions and, in the current financial year to date, we have successfully eliminated annualised costs of £49.3m, representing 4% of the full year 2008 cost base.

“We anticipate that current market conditions will continue throughout the remainder of this financial year. However, we are confident that our market-leading portfolio of products and services, high-quality customer support, well established distribution channels and loyal, geographically diverse customer base mean we are well positioned to benefit when markets recover.”