The UK's Sage Group has spent more than $1 billion over the last four years to buy Interact -- the maker of sales, marketing and customer management products ACT! and SalesLogix -- as well as accounting software maker Peachtree and others.

With the move, Irvine, California-based Best Software joins such established players as J.D. Edwards & Co and Intuit Inc. in beefing up offerings for small to medium businesses. Technology spending by those companies has remained healthy when compared with shrinking expenditures from large corporations.

To that end, other companies eyeing smaller businesses in the U.S. include publicly held software titans Microsoft Corp., SAP AG, PeopleSoft Inc. and Oracle Corp.

Best Software Chief Executive Ron Verni told Reuters that the company currently has 1.6 million customers on its accounting and financial software products. Additionally, he said, 1.7 million people use Act! to track sales contacts.

"We've sort of been a sleeping giant in the U.S.," said Verni, who this year plans to bring on 100,000 new software users in the United States.

In addition to stitching together its portfolio of selling, accounting, fund-raising and asset-tracking software products under the Best master brand, the company has created new business divisions based on products and market segments. It also is targeting four key industries, which focus on manufacturers, distributors, accountants and nonprofits.