General Consultant Discussion

Have you dealt with Sage on migrations from Sage 100 perpetual to Sage 100c where Sage requires that the customer completes a deactivation form if they want to drop users or modules on the way to 100c? This was not the way it was explained to us at Sage Summit. I recall several people asking and Sage (Linda Cade) being adamant that users can keep their perpetual - ""they own it"" (or rather they own a perpetual license). This creates two issues in my mind: a. It's not in line with how Sage explained 100c (so, fine they changed their mind or nobody remembers) b. The customer is forced to sign a deactivation form before they make a final decision to go 100c. I already had one customer who was forced to sign this and then in the midst of their process the company was sold which put the brakes on their migration decision making. I know I didn't dream this.

Yes, I have dealt with this. I believe what you remember from Linda is that perpetual customers could potentially have two systems available to them. A customer who migrates to 100c will receive new licensing for the new system. They must deactivate the modules/users they don't want if they want to pay a lower subscription price. If they keep the perpetual system intact with the old registration information, they could potentially go back to using it down the road if they decided to cancel their subscription. It would probably be a little messy to move data from 100c back to 100 because the perpetual system would need to be at a pre-phone home version level, right? All former perpetual customers would be able to do this if they kept their old registration information, but I doubt most customers are thinking this way. Boy, that was confusing just typing all that. If it is wrong, I blame Sage for misinformation.

It wasn't a dream, a little nightmarish though. Linda's right, but Sage management may not agree. If you buy something, you own it even if it's out of warranty.

I agree with @BrianKelly. That was my understanding also.

I believe @BrianKelly restated what I had indicated. In practice, Sage gives the customer a brand new order form detailing the modules included in the bundle that has to be signed in blood, faxed with a credit card. What more of a confirmation could Sage need that the customer agrees to order the modules indicated on 100c? These orders *cannot* come from the partner -- they must be direct from the customer. With the amount of bogus paperwork Sage requires with these migrations, I believe they've hired an executive from Carmax to come in and design the procedure... Forcing the customer to de-activate perpetual licenses is contrary to what Linda Cade stated several times at Summit. What I know is happening is that Sage has NO way for a customer on a self-updating version of Sage 100 to keep a copy of perpetual if they've moved to 100c. I think Linda had to admit that once she saw that Sage didn't have the technology chops to allow a perpetual customer on a self-updating version to keep their perpetual copy. What I recall is her backpedaling and well, um, uhh, ahh , err, yeah the customer could stay perpetual if they backed down to a non-self updating version. This is all complete and utter BS for Sage to roll this out, explaining it incorrectly then order us to go migrate customers to 100c.

I will argue, because I don't trust Sage anymore, that they absolutely do ""have the chops"" to do exactly what you described @WayneSchulz. Sage could easily offer settings inside Sage 100 for this very thing. It is similar to the new UI. You don't even get to use the new UI if you are not on a 100c subscription. Sage could allow perpetual customers that have migrated to a subscription to choose between the two for daily use. They won't, and they don't want to. I don't think Linda thought about what she was saying when she said it. I know, shocking!

I am with you except for the UI part. Bizarrely, Sage 100 perpetual can indeed use the new standard UI and I have found they can even use font scaling provided the resolution of their monitor meets requirements.

Well, perhaps Sage does NOT have the chops...smh

(Imagined fine print): * We don't want to program our software protection to accommodate what is possible for real world existing contractual obligations. Please agree to give up the rights you own under perpetual licensing so we can lock you into a subscription.

It has taken sometimes 4-6 weeks between requesting a quote and getting keys on this. It seems like they do it for the first time each time we try and process one.

Between the back and forth I tell customers who opt to migrate to 100c that they should expect a minimum of 7 to 10 business days before all the paperwork flows. I am still considerably embarrassed each time I ask that the customer complete paperwork and fax it. I no longer will do a 100c migration except for at renewal. I found that when I was doing them midway through the customer's plan and removed users or modules that not only was I preparing the paperwork for free but Sage would also issue a debit for the remaining maintenance. This is just a bad experience all around and I suspect most 100 to 100c migrations will start to stall out as a result.

Sage will be sending up to seven attendees (maybe more) to MOTM. Would be a good time to bring this up. Not sure if a new team will be showing up, so we might just start with a review of last year's session and if we have time, bring up new topics.

Lets go back to pre-newpartnerportal. Give me a damn PDF with pricing like the old days and I can generate the quote in minutes and send it to Sage for them to order. For the life of me - I cant understand why renewals, sage 100 to 100c migrations and new deal pricing is so hard with so many people involved. We did this with ease 10 years ago and it had to take less resources on Sage's part.

I actually really like the 100c price list. I think Sage should eliminate all the add-ons like WO, JC, etc and throw them in one or more of the core bundles. I'd like to see them simplify the SI pricing too - there should be an unlimited everything so nobody has to guess which components are needed. The Sage order processing is unacceptable. I don't see them having the capability to improve. They should go back to the order desk method of placing orders and renewing. Even better, they should allow partners to purchase and pay for the licenses in bulk so that the VAR could bundle them into a one-number support plan. I know the last part will never occur but it would be nice.

Admin cost centers don't really get priority for executive attention, yet those inadequacies are very visible to everyone else. I saw the same thing at IBM when I was working in their customer support operations department in the late 90's.