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Earning call (3 month) transcript of Stephen Kelly/Sage: Steve Hare CFO: In North America, we have a softer quarter. But as expected reflects continuing revenue contraction in payments, which accounts for about 20% of the North American revenue. And again this remains a priority for us. Growth, excluding payments was okay. But overall, growth in North America needs to pick up over the course of the year. http://seekingalpha.com/article/2860746-sages-sggef-ceo-stephen-kelly-on-q1-2015-trading-update-call-transcript

Canada was a highlight with good growth as was Sage ERP X3 in North America. Brazil continues to deliver a reasonable level of growth, high single-digit. EMEA, South America continues to perform very well with good growth particularly in the SMBs product space, again including Sage ERP X3.

My takeaways: 1, There's a 100 day review going on - and will be further update in 30 days when the next analyst report is made 2. Already have re-organized financial, legal, IT -- starting to think more about one global company 3. Sage Payments - 20% of North America (ouch) 4. ERP X3 deals mostly want to pay licensing now subscription 5. Traditional SSRS (I think this means software licenses and related services - traditional pricing) is at best a 1-2% growth 6. Though they didn't talk a lot about it - Sage One seems like it's going to get a big push since it's a fully global product (Note: I'm pretty sure there are some Sage One ""flavors"" that are not the core Sage One technology but rather are other products renamed as Sage One) 7. Analyst question about management changes (plural) in North America. I only have seen discussion of Joe Langner (who I don't think has responsibility for X3 or Payments).. Wonder if there is another change we haven't seen. Also I wonder if Langer left due to a conflict with the new UK CEO (pure speculation).

Three thoughts: 1. If they want to grow revenue, that's great and I think we are all on board provided they don't just slap another price hike on to customers that are already up against the wall. 2. If they want to grow earnings, everyone should buckle down for more margin tightening as they will get their numbers out of the partners share. 3. I will never understand how an organization that has continued to dig, dig, dig themselves a hole for over a decade can sit back and complain that they can't see the sun. Man up, take the hit in the stock market and start improving fundamentals, Products and Marketing, if you want to have future success.