Sage News and Discussion

A new way to purchase Sage ERP Intelligence Reporting: Coming February 11 Beginning Tuesday, February 11, your customers will be able to buy a subscription bundle for Intelligence Reporting that includes unlimited user licensing. We held a webcast on February 4, 2014, to discuss: The Intelligence Reporting subscription bundle. The new profitability dashboardavailable for Sage 100 Standard and Advanced ERP and Sage 300 ERP SQL versions. The customer communication plan and release timeframe. If you were unable to attend the live webcast, you can still view the recording.

I missed this webinar but it seems to offer an ability for customers to pay a flat $395 for Sage Intelligence installation (presumably to Sage).

Business Partner FAQ

Slide deck

I attended the webinar. I think the whole approach is very good, aimed at increasing adoption for reasons besides ""FRx Replacement"", which is a good thing. This is an initiative from Sage which can tie into more consulting/training opportunities for partners.

I cannot come up with a reason to tell a customer not to take advantage of this. For a fixed price of $395 Sage installs. Then for a price beginning at $99/mo the customer has access to unlimited SI (1-2 company codes). Seems like how SI should have been sold from day one. What I really like is that if Sage doesn't provide value the customer cancels (min. 4 month notice). That has got to light a fire under Sage's feet to keep improving their products. Especially in the area of reporting where the switching costs may not be as high as in other areas.

I attended the webinar and also like the approach. The only complaint I have is (based on an answer to a question during the webinar Q&A) Sage won't allow customers who already purchased the product to switch to the subscription method. So, a customer who has given Sage $0 for Sage Intelligence can get it for $99/month but a customer who has given Sage a couple grand for a license can't get the same deal. Makes no sense to me.

This should be easy to sell to customers, especially at the 1-2 company level of $99, since the Gold Plan is included. Total outlay per year is $1,188. If a customer separately licenses Designer and Connector, Gold maintenance alone is $412.50. If you have an additional Report Manager and 4 Viewers (which is not unusual for divisionalized companies) the annual maintenance is $1,030 - very close to the bundle cost. Now anyone can access and it's very likely the customer will call for support more often than with ERP.