About a half dozen people told me they received an email asking them to sign a petition to Sage requesting recent reversal of announced changes to allow tier to be modified down four times instead of twice yearly.
I think you can make great arguments both ways-- the first from Sage's standpoint is ""sell more"" and this problem goes away.
The second from the partner perspective is "" you're taking money out of VAR pockets to show improved North American results"". Note: The Sage earnings reports are not detailed enough to know if this is accurate or not.
In neither case is the best route totally clear to me.
I'm more of the opinion that the era of VARS making money off software / maintenance commission is winding down. We'll likely see it chipped away each year.
SaaS vendors sit and claim you're going to earn x % recurring revenue each and every year for the life of that customer contract...
BAWHAHAHAHA - yeah ok. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this (as I've often done during these presentations at ITA).
In my opinion we can either fight change-- or adapt our businesses so that the sale of software / maintenance is less of a driver of our revenues.
I've recently said that the VAR opportunity is:
1. All about local
2. An increasingly tough argument to tell customers that every upgrade has to be a ""spreadsheet quote"" with a hefty budget.
3. SaaS is not a cure all since the cost is often prohibitive, lock-in can be steep and many features are missing that present customers expect.
4. In my opinion no vendor/publisher is going to pay a lifetime guaranteed residual. Wake up and smell the coffee.
http://erplife.com/2011/12/14/sage-mid-market-partner-group-ask-that-sage-inc-rescind-tier-calculation