Archive for the ‘Accounting Software’ Category
BCS ProSoft Consumes Deltek Practice of Forepoint Who Themselves Were Consumed By Net@Work
In a blog post today Clark Haley, CEO of Sage VAR BCS ProSoft announced his firm had reached a deal with Forepoint Inc. to take over their Deltek Vision practice. Forepoint Inc. is a provider of business application software for small to mid-sized companies with a focus on accounting, ERP, project management, HRMS, and CRM solutions.
Forepoint, Inc in November 2010 sold their Sage ERP Accpac practice to East Coast super-VAR Net@Work.
BCS PROSOFT TO TAKE OVER THE DELTEK VISION PRACTICE OF FOREPOINT, INC.
Let Me Pick Your Brain. You Name Your Price – So Long As It’s Not More Than What I Pay My Lawn Guy
I get maybe one or two requests a year to speak to some anonymous web visitor doing research.
It’s almost a certainty that these are some financial types either doing due diligence or writing a research paper that they’ll re-sell.
I’ve never found a way to properly charge for “brain picking”. They all want to pay for an hour or two of services — however in the back of my mind I know that the value goes far beyond the hour or two that they offer – yet they almost always disappear at any suggestion beyond them paying you for an hour of your time (which they usually value at the lowest rate that they’ve offered the guy mowing their lawn someone doing this type of work on the side — aka about $25/hr is deemed “fair”)…
Here’s what the request looks like.
Life After Jodi Uecker-Rust At Sage Business Solutions
Yesterday’s news of Jodi Uecker-Rust’s departure as the leader of Sage Business Solutions in North America didn’t really come as a total shock.
Surprise? Yes. Shock? No.
Prior to joining Sage in February 2009 Jodi had spent her career first at Great Plains and then led a division at Microsoft (after they acquired Great Plains for $1.1 Billion in 2001) playing a key role in the Navision acquisition.
By my personal observation during her tenure at Sage North America she was all but invisible to most VARS while Paul Johnson, Executive VP, served as the public face of Sage and emceed many events including the Sage Presidents Circle in Phoenix.
When the announcement arrived yesterday that Jodi was leaving for what were described as personal reasons there were several things that stood out to me.
Are All Blogs Created The Same? Not If Publishers Are Hidden Behind Them
Late last night one of my 90 Minds group members posted a link to our internal Socialcast network regarding a new blog. He commented that a new web blog he found looked like an interesting source of information about Software As A Service (SaaS) or cloud computing.
First thing this morning I skipped over to take a look. Sure enough it seemed to be a relatively new blog cataloging news items in the SaaS industry.
The Internet is ripe with sites that spring up overnight with posts populated by RSS feeds from other blogs (aka SPLOGS or Spam Blogs). In general these SPLOGS seems to exist to try to game the system and earn both ad revenue and perhaps measure search visibility for a particular domain.
At first I suspected that’s what this site was. However after looking for a minute it didn’t seem to be your typical SPLOG. There were links to industry analyst blogs. The articles seemed relatively current and topical.
The it hit me as I read the bottom of the blog. There was an entire row of posts sponsored by only one SaaS/Cloud publisher. I took a quick look at the Network Solutions Domain Name Lookup. Sure enough the site is hosted on the server of what seems to be the only sponsor. Read the rest of this entry »
Buying Leads Sucks
This morning I awoke to a message in my email inbox (click the full image on the left to get an idea of what I’m talking about).
The email is from a company that serves as a lead gathering source for ERP VARS ( and probably software publishers too ). They’re certainly not the only company offering this service but since I happen to be on their email distribution list I’ll use them as an example.
This lead they’re offering is a person looking to be better trained for future job opportunities. A noble request – but not exactly the type of lead most VARS would be looking for.
Which started me thinking. Are “pay leads” something VARS should be chasing? Maybe there was a time in the past that they worked. Are they still a valid marketing tool?
Services like the one that sent the email work by having end users submit contact information online – usually doing so in exchange for some type of free white paper or other assistance with finding an ERP solution.
These prospects are then matched with one of several consulting firms who’ve paid to receive the names of companies looking for help in their area of expertise.
At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Lies Competitors Hope You Believe
If I’d taken all the terrible business advice I’ve been given over the years I would have been out of business 10 years ago.
Well meaning consultants have this habit of giving advice about things they sometimes know nothing about. If you’re foolish enough to follow it you may end up like they do – out of business, unemployed or working as an employee.
