Co-operation Agreement

Microgen PLC
4 May 2000


              Sage and Microgen to Co-operate
                  on e-Billing Services

Microgen plc ('Microgen'), the UK's leading business-to-
business ('B2B') e-billing company, today announced that it
has entered into an agreement with the Sage Group plc, the
world's leading supplier of accounting and payroll software,
whereby Microgen will offer customers of its e-billing
service the ability to distribute electronic invoices and
statements in a Sage-ready format.

Users of Sage accounting software who receive e-bills via
Microgen will be able to post these invoices directly to
accounts payable within their Sage software, thus
eliminating the cost of paper handling and data entry.

E-billing is a rapidly growing area of e-business,
particularly in the B2B sector, delivering tangible benefits
to both suppliers and customers through lower cost of bill
distribution, improved customer service and more efficient
processing of financial documents. Microgen's application
service provider (ASP) model enables companies to access the
benefits of e-billing rapidly and without the need for
capital expenditure.

Sage also announced that it will pilot an e-billing
aggregation service with Microgen via its small business
portal, www.sage.com. This will enable Sage customers to
view and upload e-bills received from multiple suppliers via
a single, aggregated bill portal. Microgen's ASP
infrastructure will provide the underlying aggregation and
storage of e-bills necessary to deliver this service.

Paul Stobart, Chief Operating Officer at Sage, commented:
'This announcement underlines Sage's commitment to provide
active support for business by offering our customers a
range of e-business services and by working with leading
third party suppliers, such as Microgen, to ensure that
their products and services are offered in a Sage-ready'
format'.

Martyn Ratcliffe, Executive Chairman at Microgen, commented:
'Microgen has established a leading position in the B2B e-
billing sector and its ASP model enables companies to deploy
e-billing capability without capital expenditure. This
agreement with Sage, who are the established market leader
in accounting software in the small and medium sized
enterprise (SME) sector, significantly extends the range of
organisations who can benefit from Microgen's e-billing
services'.

About Sage Software Ltd
Sage Software Ltd is a subsidiary of The Sage Group plc, a
leading international supplier of mainstream PC business
software solutions.  Formed in 1981, the Group was floated
on the stock exchange in 1989 and now employs over 4,000
people worldwide in its market leading companies throughout
Europe and the USA

For more information contact:

Suzy Goulding
Sage press office
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Or alternatively, please go to the Sage website at
www.sage.com


About Microgen plc

Founded in 1972, Microgen is a market leader in information
management services. For over 25 years, Microgen has managed
the outsourced storage, retrieval, processing and
distribution of business data and documentation.

For more information contact:

Karen Hautz
01753 847166
Email: [e-mail]

Or visit the Microgen website at www.microgen.co.uk

Steve Liebmann or Isabel Petre at Buchanan Communications
020-7466-5000

www.buchanan.uk.com