General Consultant Discussion

Boy, it's been really quiet this week with everyone at Sage Summit. I hope someone will post highlights for those of us unable to attend. Safe travels for you guys!

I was just saying the same thing. Haven't heard anything good or bad other than Oracle buying NetSuite.

http://diginomica.com/2016/07/25/sage-in-rally-cry-to-partner-ecosystem-to-support-cloud-growth-sage-in-rally-cry-to-partner-ecosystem-to-support-cloud-growth/

(the 'c' meaning cloud versions of)"" - apparently you can fool the PR hacks...

I thought the 'c' meant CRYING

Great concert with the killers. Food has been much better than usual except for last night where it was cash and carry

The setup was quite impressive and they did a better job with the celebrity Q&A. I think this year the questions and conversations resonated better with small business owners

The sessions were pretty meh. The Road ahead was still more about the past (what they actually got into 2016) and what they are trying to get done with Payroll 2.0 (showed screen shots only) and getting Job Cost, work order and MRP into framework. Talked about integrated time capture and new 100c manufacturing. No clear differentiation on what to use when and where

Trade show was spread out and lively. Sage was in front and separated from everyone. Lots of new ideas which people did not seem to understand or use. IMHO

Sage plans continued development of the ""c"" versions of 100 and 300 plus on another growth track aggressively build out 3 cloud platforms, Sage one, Sage Live, and Sage X3. It appears that Salesforce.com is the new CRM of choice. Sage wants us to encourage customers to migrate to the ""c"" platforms but promises that there will not be any ""forced"" upgrades. We always tend to hear what we want to hear, but ""force"" comes in a lot of flavors. The Partners will have the challenge of explaining the difference between ""perpetual"" license vs ""subscription"" license for those customers who elect to make the change to ""c"". I plan to have that explanation documented at the time the customer decides to make the switch. On the whole Sage's vision for the future is more clear today than it has been in recent years. One final note: the ""c"" designation as in Sage 100c stands for ""subscription"".

I thought it was more positive this year than the past several. I think Sage NA finally figured out that selling direct wasn't going to generate more revenue than using partners. That doesn't mean they go back to 2006 - subscription is more than a goal. I think Sage NA is really trying to get Sage 100c into a competitive state. They are willing to contract out the development for putting JC and WO into Framework, and that goal is on the year's roadmap. Current customers should understand that if they stay with Sage, they must plan on switching to 100c's subscription. ""Force"" is a spectrum, and Sage will increase the arm twisting to make the change, mainly through how it releases new features. Sage Live is very much at the heart of Sage's strategy. They have hired lots of folks out of Salesforce the company and ecosystem. Those are the folks doing the development, run by British management -- not Irvine or BC. They showed significant improvement this year over last, and this sort of development is generally not linear, so I'd expect relatively more by next summer. SL has no inventory capability now, so it is now focused on service and professional services; ""Basic Inventory"" is on its roadmap for Fall, 2017. My son sells Financial Force, which appears to be what SL hopes to be in a few years; implementation for that is NOT trivial - hence partners. I am very, very intrigued with Sage Cloud Integration. It, too is built by sf consultants, and is working for current apps connecting to SL. It explicitly includes an API from on prem systems. Their first target Sage 50, so that one common web interface will work with the 3 different products that all called ""Sage 50"". A prototype was shown at Summit. If Irvine actually finishes the Sage 100 API (which they did not do for sData), then theoretically the same GPS app shown in a main session connecting to SL, would work with Sage 100. A big ""if"" I know, but that could be a huge life extender for the product. It also means that Sage 100's current UI would be irrelevant to many users, who could use tablet apps for Order entry, shipping, cash receipts, RoG, etc. Either Sage UK pulls off the SL development and potentially wins big, or the whole thing collapses in a few years. But they seem to have decoupled the development effort from prior (non-) development teams. An encouraging sign.

I agree with Jerry. I was kind of expecting a little negative tone but felt that there was quite a bit of energy. Biggest take away for me was the 180 degree move from Sage CRM. It is now more of a module than product and seems surrounded with crickets. Trade show was a village and huge. I liked the format overall. All of the usual booths seemed to be there. Most of the usual 3rd parties felt it was a good show for them. Check out DSD's new Multi-bin module.

My clients remained confused after sitting through the road ahead of 100c. Still weren't getting straight answers regarding whether they absolutely HAD to turn into a subscription frog at midnight. Why don't they just say ""yes, we know it sucks, but this is the way it is going to be"" No, they say ""that decision has not been made yet""? They also would not say the word ""JobOps"" in the same breath as 100 Manufacturing, just that it was a 3rd party product. PR looks promising. Just scared to death of the number of bugs that remain when they release. AAtrix is indicating that the YE information deadline could be moved up to 1/31/17 due to the massive amount of fraud. Will Pegg be as good as Siri or be another MSFT ""Clippy""? Check back in 2020 for the final answer.

Also, Linda Cade seems to be a very nice person, WHY do they keep bringing up in front as the Sage presenter?? OMG! How about some high energy that makes me EXCITED to switch to subscription.

Just like everything that Sage does, they proceed with an initiative but are unable to answer all the questions that surface. And how is it that Sage isn't ""forcing"" folks to go to c? Big Sage 100 client has been using the software for years, and now needs JobOps. Nope not that easy, have to go to c in order to get JobOps. Ok, so maybe that's not ""forcing"", but it's certainly holding 'em hostage.

@JerryNorman - Don't you believe for a second that they aren't steadily increasing their direct sales efforts. Look under the covers and you will see what is happening as they continue their build out of PSG and direct sales efforts.

They have definitely had turnover in Norcross office from renewal people to direct sales efforts for both 100 and 300.

Also I heard from many of the sponsors who received no public recognition (anyone below about 40k) that they had a great show with their Acumatica partners!

@PeterWolf I assume that they are. And that most of the ""partner"" stuff was aimed at folks they want to work in the SL/SO area. Sometimes I put out statements like this in unclear areas to to flush up disagreement. Nothing here changed my intentions of diversifying. I do have confidence in showing 100c as a option now. Also confirmed that Sage CRM is not.

@JeffSchwenk The presentation problem is another symptom of the corporate ""hollowing out"" I've mentioned before. To give a confident product roadmap presentation you really do have to know the things on the map cold. Then you add the presentation skills. But Irvine is so hollow that Linda is the only one with the knowledge to satisfy the prereq. They tried to delegate this to Deborah, who arguably has better presentation skills, a couple years ago, but who only knew part of the story. (Although it turned out there wasn't any more of the story ...) In a better world, Linda's boss would have joined her. I suspect he didn't bring his Kevlar, and so chickened out.

Has anyone seen any survey sites requesting our feedback? Not to think that they really want our feedback. Every year my clients ask me if they should attend. This year I had about 16 attendees. They all had questions about the emperor's clothing. They all seemed to like the keynotes, they were all wondering about the future as 100 never made the big screen, just relegated to the back alley shows....

Did anyone see or hear what the Free Inventory Advisor restrictions were going to be?

Besides being on c?

Inventory Advisor Basics requires the Advanced or Complete bundle with gold or platinum support.

Our roadmap prefaced and punctuated with a disclaimer that everything could be completely different from plans.

There is some consistency - work order on framework is still ""next year

Whose Multi-Bin solution will they be usings??? DSD?? ScanForce???

@LourdesSobrino - No rumor is ACS's just no contract signed as of Summit .

But it was on the roadmap, it must be real?!?