Latest News - Spire
Latest news on the development of Spire - the future of BusinessVision
So maybe you're already using Essentials (formerly BVEssentials), and you've heard about Spire, but want to know what it is. Well, the first place to look is this overview of Essentials. You may also want to read more about why Spire factors into The Future of BusinessVision.
If you know all that and just want to know where Spire stands today, here it is in brief:
Spire 1.0 released March 30, 2015
Yes, the formal initial release is now available!
- Spire is under very active development, coinciding with the ongoing Essentials development, since they are based on the same codebase - only the database engine it runs on will be changing
- Five full-time developers have been working on the product for many months (by comparison, Sage now has just one developer working part-time on BusinessVision). Releases of Essentials have been fast and furious since mid-2013 especially, with all code being compatible with Spire
- Since February 2015, Spire has been implemented live in quite a few end-user sites with excellent results so far
- Our expectation is that a realistic time frame for implementing Spire for existing Essentials users is probably starting around fall, 2015
Note about Spire version 1.x available now
Spire 1.x is now available, but please note that 1.x does not yet include the following features (scheduled for the coming months):
- Batch AR
- Budgets and Forecasts
- Production and Service add-ons
Once Spire is ready to go for a wider audience, we'll be adding more details here for you to review. Meanwhile, we are really excited to see what's coming. We've loved BusinessVision for so long, but we really believe that Spire is The Future of BusinessVision.
Spire Highlights
Here are some of the most important things you need to know about Spire right away:
- Spire will convert all of your BusinessVision data, so you won't need to keep BusinessVision running to see your history. There is no Sage or other application that will do the same
- Spire can also be installed fresh from the ground up if you have never used BusinessVision. It is a complete standalone system after all, and as of February 2015 has been released to live customer environments
- Spire is NOT a brand-new system at all. It's the same code base as BVEssentials, which was first developed in 2001, and which has been progressively enhanced and expanded ever since. However, all the tools used to build Spire are completely up-to-date and modern
- Spire will be disconnected from the Pervasive database, and all the legacy problems Pervasive imposes on BusinessVision. Instead, Spire will be moved to a great open-source database called PostgreSQL, which is fast and functional enough to run everything from a simple stand-alone application, to some of the largest Internet sites. While PostgreSQL has been around for many years, it has been kept up, and is a very modern database
- Spire will use a current version of Crystal Reports for forms and reports, which will give us more flexibility to convert your existing BusinessVision custom reports and to maintain new custom forms or reports going forward (BusinessVision still uses Crystal Reports 10, which is several versions behind)
- If you use BusinessVision, you can buy your Spire licenses now and choose whether to move straight to Spire, whether to add BVEssentials now and use your Spire licenses to upgrade to Spire when you're ready. Everything you've learned about BVEssentials will still apply in Spire, so you'll have a minimal learning curve
- All the major third-party developers making add-ons for BusinessVision are already in the process of making their applications integrate cleanly with Spire - some of them are already completed
Spire Really is the Future for Sage BusinessVision Users
We keep saying that, don't we? Well, that's because we believe it to be true.
Please read more about why we believe this.
contact us the future of BV essentials software bvessentials/spire services home