The ERP Lifestyle Consultant

A group of approximately 100 Sage partners (panelists pictured above left to right- Moira Goggin (Chismet Consulting – event co-organizer), Mary Abdian (Macabe Associates) , Doug Deane (DSD Business Systems) , John Hoyt (Hutchinson and Bloodgood), Bill Kizer (xKzero))  gathered today in Lake Forest California. The group was split about 50/50 with some consultants attending in person and others remotely (web ex) for an in-depth discussion of changes that have been rolled out to the Sage eco-system (margins, certifications, subscription pricing, partner compensation).

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Kudos to Bill Kizer for arranging a LinkedIn group meeting for Sage Parters, Alumni and Employees which at last count showed 100 people RSVPing they would attend.

Bill persevered in creating this meeting despite the software publisher suggesting a game of channel hide and seek instead.

Don’t you love social media?

The event happens Thursday March 15, 2012 and features a panel discussion with some top VARs, prizes, sharing, vendor presentations, networking.

There’s still time to register -UPDATE: Event has occurred. Read our wrap up of this networking event – Sage Consultant LinkedIn Summit.

A post on Summitdiary appears to directly describe the transformation journey underway at Sage North America in a way Sage partners will relate to.

Using the metaphor of a man and wife in a lengthy marriage, Peter Wolf argues that lack of communication rather than the bad marriage is what may be the ultimate downfall.

Sage North America have rolled out drastic changes over the last six months that materially affect their relationship with partners. Some partners have been shocked by the news and lack of advance communication.

It’s a timely story – which is likely to gather quite a few comments. Head over and add your 2 cents.

Have a read at the aptly titled  - Til Death Do Us Part?

I just received a media invite to Intuit’s Innovation Gallery Walk being held March 29, 2012 in New York city.

Intuit hosts this event every year so people can come in and look at not only current products but those which are in their testing labs for potential future release.

Last year’s event was a great opportunity to look at many of Intuit’s technology projects – especially interesting where their mobile payments project and their Brainstorm group collaboration application which at the time was in testing but subsequently saw a release  (and un-release) to the public in August 2011.

I’m looking forward to attending again to take another look at the technologies that Intuit is working to bring to the marketplace.

See more than 20 innovations, including recently launched products, in-market experiments and early prototypes for consumers, small businesses and those who serve them. (We’ll have cocktails and appetizers to help you unwind after a long day.) Hear perspectives, predictions and customer insights from CEO Brad Smith, founder Scott Cook, chiefs of technology, innovation, data and business unit executives. Learn how Intuit’s product managers and engineers are uncovering and solving complex problems to improve our customers’ financial lives.

Intuit

Sage announced in an October 28, 2011 all hands partner conference call that a new pricing method for their products would be forthcoming within the next year and that they’d be ready to think about discussing it within three months.

Three months has passed and it now seems Sage are actively polling about 500 current customers asking what price they’d be willing to pay per month for their current accounting solution.

Update March 2, 2012: Sage have notified that channel of pricing for NEW (not existing) users of Sage 100 ERP, 300 and 500. This poll that was sent to existing users would appear to be testing the pricing method EXISTING users might prefer to pay if there is a transition allowed between module and user pricing (as of now Sage prohibits switching between licensing models).

Pricing options under consideration reportedly are $75, $100 or $125 per user per year. I  believe this is for Sage 100 ERP users though I was not able to view the actual survey so have to rely on the customer’s explanation.

One company sent a copy of the email to us (not a customer of ours) remarking that with their present user count they could potentially face a bill of $40,000 per year. Of course this is only a survey and Sage might implement any number of plans for existing users including grandfathering existing users but adding new purchases at a potentially new rate.

With any change to a subscription model I think the Sage 100 ERP software will be issued expiring unlock registration codes so that using the software without paying maintenance could become a trick of the past for cost savvy customers.

In a press release today Netsuite trumpets several key customer wins showcased during CEO Zach Nelson’s February 29, 2012 keynote address at ETail West 2012 Conference in Palm Desert CA.

The key wins listed:

• Serena & Lily
• GoPro
• InkJetSuperStore
• Ultimate Office
• GameWear
• Niner Bikes

This announcement is the first time I’ve awoken to a realization that SaaS products are providing an end-to-end solution (Accounting, Disribution, ECommerce, EDI) in a way that many in the on-premises world have concluded would be years away. I’ve seen the slide decks that claim to offer turnkey solutions but the full package seemed to be elusive.

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Sage 100 ERP (Formerly MAS 90 and 200) Product Updates issued quarterly have, in my opinion, been a failure.

Time to admit it. Bring back an annual upgrade and monthly service packs.

First some background.

Sage began issuing quarterly product updates with version 4.30 4.4 of Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200.

These updates contained feature enhancements (mostly folded in Extended Solutions which Sage used to sell but had since open sourced). Rather than increasing the version number the product update would add a corresponding Product Update version to the end of the customer’s version – for example Version 4.4 with Product Update 1 was 4.4.0.1.

Prior to version 4.30 4.4 Sage issued monthly bundles of program patches that they labeled as Service Updates. These were self-installable bundles of fixes which in turn had replaced the old method of requiring customers (or more likely their VARS) to install fixes individually.

The Service Updates rarely included additional features and instead focussed on stabilizing the existing code.

In theory these Product Updates would make customers happier as they introduced new features in each release and replaced the prior practice of annual upgrades and monthly service packs (primarily bug fixes).

Unfortunately from my vantage point quarterly Product Updates didn’t make most users’ live’s easier.

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SugarCRM is an open sourced open-source, web-based CRM solution, which is advertised as being able to run in the Cloud or on-site.

Recently I’m noticing more top tier Sage VARS advertising SugarCRM – most recently Blytheco (Sage’s North America Partner Of The Year) , then Faye Business Solutions Group and Brainsell.

Faye and Brainsell are listed on SugarCRM’s partner site. Blytheco is not so it’s possible they’re just running a series of educational sessions though it’s difficult to believe they’re adverting a competitor for what’s supposed to be one of Sage’s bread and butter markets (CRM).

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Faye Business Systems Group (FBSG) a Southern California technology consulting firm announced today that they’ve joined the Intacct Business Partner Program.  Intacct is a leading provider of cloud financial management and accounting software

In a press release dated January 23, 2011 ,  FBSG CEO David Faye indicates that FBSG will be working on further developing an integration between Intacct and SugarCRM as well as other potential custom solutions.

Faye Business Solutions Group, Inc was formed in January 2010 as a spinoff from Southern California IT consulting firm Faye, Pollack & Associates and in addition to Intacct their website indicates support for Sage ERP MAS 90 , 200, and SugarCRM.

Interestingly the first paragraph of the press release talks about Intacct as being “significantly more partner friendly” which seems to take direct aim at the wide ranging changes Sage continues to make to their partner program including increased certifications, reductions to partner support and marketing of Sage support directly to customers.

The Intacct Business partner channel is run by former Sage Channel Chief Taylor Macdonald who has made some strides in recruiting Sage partners  - most visible so far being Sage Non-Profit specialists JMT Consulting who is noted as being a $4.9 million var on the Accounting Technology VAR 100 for 2011 and Canada’s $ 5.6 million  Equation Technologies who represents Sage Accpac and was ranked # 63 on the 2011 VAR 100.

There seems to be a steady stream of news related to ERP vendor Epicor (Full disclosure – I work exclusively as an independent consultant with a competitive ERP product). The latest lawsuit from Major Brands claims that Epicor over-promised and under-delivered on a $1,000,000+ software and services ERP engagement.

According to the lawsuit the initial cost of $500,000 in software licenses and $ 670,000 in services (to be provided by Epicor directly because “there’s only one throat to choke”) not only ran past the initial go-live date of  ”mid 2011″ but also doubled in price and according to the suit Epicor eventually admitted the software they’d recommended was ” not suitable for Major Brands’ needs and that it would not perform as previously represented”.

By the time Major Brands filed suit Epicor was indicating that their net version, ICE 3.0, would fix everything – but not until it was available in mid 2012.

 During the testing, the V9 software was so ill-suited for Major Brands’ needs, no invoicing or shipments were able to occur.

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