Edge & Ellison and Lewis Silkin sign up with Axxia

Elizabeth Davidson reports

Commercial firms Edge & Ellison and Lewis Silkin have both signed deals with the IT provider Axxia Systems.

Edge & Ellison is paying the company £400,000 to equip each of its 300 fee earners with a Windows-based practice management system in its Birmingham, London and Leicester offices.

IT director Andy Rudall said the firm intended to complete the update by next April, adding that the project was "ambitious" but that the firm had prepared for the introduction of Axxia's Arista desktop product by giving fee earners Windows training.

Rudall said the firm hoped to introduce two other Axxia products, Case Manager and Executive Information System, later on in the year.

Lewis Silkin is investing £250,000 to replace its existing accounting software, Ushers, with Axxia's Arista practice management system. It will be available for all 90 fee earners in the firm's London and Surrey offices by mid-1998.

Lewis Silkin practice manager Peter Scott said the firm signed the deal last month and is now in the process of converting from its old system to the new one. He added: "We visited users of all the different systems to seek their views before deciding."