Sage 100

In other words, sell 25% to 75% more license to make the same money you made last year... Welcome to the new world of ERP sales.. Important announcement: Tier threshold adjustments for Sage Mid-Market Solutions The Sage tier program rewards partners who are growing their Sage businessproviding some of the most competitive margins in the industry. The program was relaunched earlier this year with the goal to simplify partner compensation across Sage product lines and support the ""One Sage"" philosophy. Although there were various product mixes, including new product solutions that were realigned from ten different tier schedules down to two (Sage Mid-Market Solutions and Sage Construction and Real Estate Solutions), very minor adjustments to the tier thresholds were made. In addition, we introduced extensive migration credits, subscription credits, and multipliersall counting toward tier thresholds. In order to strategically align with market conditions and be positioned for growth on an ongoing basis, from time to time, it is necessary to adjust applicable tier thresholds under the tier program. As such, tier threshold changes for Sage Construction and Real Estate Solutions already went into effect earlier this year, and given current market dynamics, as of December 8, 2014, we have made adjustments to the Sage Mid-Market Solutions tier thresholds. It is important to note that tier thresholds have not been significantly adjusted for over five years. Tier thresholds effective December 8, 2014 Product margins Tier level Diamond Platinum Gold Silver Sage Mid-Market Solutions total product threshold Effective December 8: Total Product threshold $400,000 $200,000 $100,000 $25,000 (No change) Old: Total Product threshold $270,000 $140,000 $70,000 $25,000 Based upon the tier attained under the new thresholds, your tier levels may changeand starting Monday, December 8, 2014, the associated Sage Business Care margins will be applied. However, your existing product margins will continue to apply until the December 31 tier calculation. Notes: Only tier thresholds have changed, while the margin percentages associated with the tier levels and growth components remain the same. Current product margins will remain in place through the December 31 tier calculations. Then, on January 1, the tier levels will be calculated based upon the new tier thresholds, and corresponding product margins will be applied. You will be able to view your new tier thresholds in the business partner tier dashboard. However, because we are not adjusting your product margins through December 31, your actual tier levels have not been changed in the dashboard. We appreciate your ongoing feedback and partnership as we continue to refine our tier program. Based upon your input, we are currently working on enhancing the growth component of the tier program and will introduce those enhancements in the next several months. For more information regarding the tier threshold adjustments, review the updated FAQ on Sage Sell. If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to contact the sales leadership team or your Sage sales representative. Best regards, Joe Langner Executive Vice President and GM Sage Mid-Market

Just sent this to my regional manager.......... Sage has such funny logic!!!! Please explain how this REWARDS partners who are growing their business by jacking up the tier level required to attain but NOT increasing the margin payout to those that do jump through the higher hoop????? Seems that you just moved the carrot way out there but still using the stick to beat the donkeys that are carrying the load. Or is the donkey really just a jack ass?????? What it seems like is that this was done to reward Sage management for increasing their margins..

Wonder if they held the announcement back until after last night's ITA ""last supper"" dinner at the ITA.... It certainly would have made the atmosphere a bit more livid...........

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/c2cc49c3-d6d9-42de-94c7-b4819f5c7a02/4b0142392bb82fb891959c920d6db515

Just sat through a session at ITA on cloud. One or two of the newer cloud vars were saying how they were counting on recurring margin on subscription. I will be shocked if this slash and reduce margin method of increasing profits doesn't come to cloud. No way I'd think that any third party recurring margin on subscription or maintenance is going to last long enough to sell as a business. The only revenue stream worth working to build is one you control and not one you rely in a third party to pay you.

Ho Ho Ho ... merry Christmas! Here's a big F-CK YOU to the channel. And @WayneSchulz is right on the money re: Cloud and Subscription. Any money that is going to be made long-term in those products is publisher money. Moving to Cloud and Subscription requires a completely new way of looking at revenue in a long-term fashion. How can you do that if you have no ability to control or predict that future revenue? @WayneSchulz - I would be curious as to how the conversation goes at ITA around this change.

From the big conservative in the crowd :) Time to Unionize! If we all threatened to embargo or switch publishers at once, especially with the larger vars, we could change their course

So much for the new guy wanting to make a POSITIVE gesture to the channel.....

Sage has recently backed off on some of these types of initiatives by deferring the start, so we definitely should make our voices heard. If the change makes business sense, then they should be willing to stay with it, rather than showing weakness and backtracking. My only real complaint about this change is not giving us any advance notice. It shows a lack of respect for the partners. I would rather have the current rules be valid through the 12/31/2014 measurement and the new ones start as of 1/1/2015.

Are we looking at the same changes, John? It's pretty substantial. Bare minimum they should have left the current numbers in play through one full quarter. Here's how this conversation went - how do we report more revenue for 2015? We've already bled the customers and we are starting to see major resistance with the sheep continuing to pay annual M&S with nothing of any substance being delivered. Gosh, what would our revenue look like if we just raised the bar on the partners tier? Oh wow, that will give us another 6.25% on our bottom line! Awesome! Let's do it! At no time does making products better or marketing better come in to the conversation. That's my twisted view on how it went down.

@PeterWolf Agreed, it is substantial. The Tier Dashboard is back up, and now I need to get $33K in sales by 12/31 to maintain tier. Not impossible in 17 working days, but really it's only 10 working days, because starting 12/22, it's much easier for customers and prospects to say they'll wait until January. I'm already getting that excuse. I surmise the decision making process was probably not even that sophisticated. Do they hide the dart board when partners are in Irvine?

Buy Sage stock I guess. They will be able to report a banner year with this move.

Analysts are positive on the Dow, not the FTSE.

Peter, you may be twisted in alot of ways :) But I think you pretty much nailed down the thinking. Sage knows that if 95% of their vars haven't abandoned them yet after 10 years of no technology improvements, 15 years of no feature improvements, a bailout from the manufacturing and job cost industry, and constantly creeping up tiers and lowering of margins, that grabbing yet another 5% or so on average from a partner isn't going matter. I'm sure they also studied the competitors. Epicor is brutal. To get to like 50% you need to do like $800k net to them and you don't even make cash on maintenance and can never get maintenane from an ROR when it comes from an epicor direct customer. All these guys are squeezing the var assuming that we'll magically make it up on services. Then clients bitch like hell when you propose rate increases (or however you price your services) Then you have the saas lemmings who think their 15% to 20% margin on subscriptions will make up all this loss...someday... until those vendors have to actually be accountable to somebody other than the VC's and start cutting those recurring margins or worse, like avalara, cut them out all together after the first year or two. We really need to package a way to market a monthly 'subscription' of our services. I haven't got the exact formula but there has to be an answer. There also has to be a way to take the idiot's out to the woodshed who haven't raised rates in 20 years, who take on free calls from the internet and who quote $150 or less per hour for services who have no overhead and don't realize they have no retirement plan

I guess the DSD model is going to become all that much more popular now. I'm not even sure if they would make Platinum at these numbers. Remember this is all at cost, not retail. Nobody is selling substantially net new Sage 100 so this all has to becoming from X3 or CRM

I agree with you Mark. And you are right that ... While this stinks, it's still better than most the other ERP publishers. We are the frogs being slowly boiled in the pot. I don't think DSD or other mega-large partners will have a problem hitting the number. It's the middle and top middle that will have the problem. I think the recurring services model is the way to go. Wayne has been doing it successfully for years. I'm slowly ... Oh so slowly ... Building my own recurring service revenue stream so it can be done. Maybe this should be an all hands session at Meeting of the Minds? I certainly think it shows the value in our group that we can discuss these types of things and changes coming quickly down the road for VARs.

they studied the competitors."" This is the key. Decisions are made between choices. Sage knows this. Sage is also pushing the cross-product sales into those tiers. These numbers are part of forcing partners into trying to do that. I frankly think that is very tough for medium- and small-sized partners, and I don't know if Sage understands that. At this point I don't care much because I don't think they can back off much from their distribution/sales plan. Wayne and Peter are right. Partners must have a business strategy that more or less decouples themselves from vendor margins. Some of us have put down our first layer of strategy to ""market a monthly 'subscription' of services"". It is hard, but not impossible. In our experience, customers are happier with it.

I don't see any way around this than for most of us to plan for a future were the margin on software/services is either zero or a nominal 5-10%. Cloud publishers are basically using the channel to gain marketshare. Once they have enough share - the margins for cloud will also plummet in a very similar manner to Sage and other on-prem products. The worrisome part of this is that if you think ahead 5-10 years when presumably cloud/SaaS is commonplace and there are more (all) full time SaaS VARS -- those recurring subscriptions are going to be tough to value. The only model that makes sense is for VARS tor require their customers to be a on a support plan for services/upgrades provided directly by the VAR.

Surprising that there is nothing on LinkedIn yet.

Who wants to break that seal?

Let us know when you do @PeterWolf .

The Grinch that Stole Christmas

From what I understand Sage told the account managers today in a meeting. At least that was what I was told. I was surprised they did not wait to put it in place 1st qtr. With only a few days left, I would think that there would be a lot of vars dropping down a tier.

Something tells me maybe they wanted to do it earlier but weren't ready on some level.

It really is an insanely short notice. These things are usually announce 3-6 months in advance. If for nothing else, as an incentive to push quarter end or fiscal year end sales. This isn't enough time, during a horribly bad period to close business to do anything. It's really a shitty way to do business

Smells like ""releasing policy in Q1"" was in somebody's bonus matrix?

Following on Jerry's thought. North America may be under such pressure to deliver growth on the UK P&L that the channel relations can be sacrificed. Too bad there's no similar way to goose the bad Sage Payments performance or the decline in ERP X 3 year over year. TL;DR: The musical chair game eventually ends. A few NA EVP don't have a seat.

Adding more fuel to the fire: I heard from several people that the new Sage UK CEO (our boss' boss) has three tenets to his strategy. One of them is ""zero touch sale."" Because, you know, nothing sells easier than yesterday's newspapers.

FAQ

Ok ... I LOLed at the section ""How will this help me?

simplified"" and needs 11 page FAQ to explain the changes.... LinkedIn post started but really how much can be said. At this point it's really upon us to design around a world where publisher margin is nominal -- 5/10%.

What was the process used by Sage to develop the new tier program?"" We started with UK's stated growth rate for NA. We assumed a 2% NA revenue decline as people dropped maintenance then backed into the additional revenue we projected that we'd need to keep our executive team from being tossed out in any potential UK re-org caused by the new CEO.

This year has been great for me.. enthusiasm has never been higher.... UNTIL learning of this... I am $2,300 short of moving up a tier... just had a client ask for another user license yesterday which put me less than $1,000 away. now they suddenly raised the bar out of reach... total bs...

Q: Why is there a separate schedule for Sage Construction and Real Estate? A: A separate schedule for Sage Construction and Real Estate is required due to the disparity in tier thresholds between Sage Construction and Real Estate and the rest of the Sage Mid-Market portfolio. However, partners who sell products across the two tier schedules will still benefit from the multiproduct tier benefit program. See the Tier Benefit Program Guide for more details regarding these programs. Short answer: No

@WayneSchulz was that in the add-on FAQ? What I love (ok sarcastically love) is that with all the policies over the last 3 years since Mr. H. came to town is that NONE of them, absolutely NONE, are about improving the products or increasing marketing. It's all just a shell game - taking more from customers, taking more from partners, giving less to customers, giving less to partners. As a partner, I wouldn't mind giving up a bit if I saw that it was being redirected in to product innovation / overhaul and improved marketing but I just don't see it. I'm sure that Sage NA feels that the mobile solutions are some form of innovation and maybe hosted Accpac (sorry - Sage 300) counts as well. The bottom line is: this is the reality that we live in. What can you do when a ""partner"" decides to screw with you and you have become dependent upon them? Change. Evolve. Soonest is bestest. I would encourage everyone in the group to attend the upcoming Meeting of the Minds and we will have some sessions and discussions around what it means to change to become less dependent upon any publisher. Sign up now - early bird promo price.

@PeterWolf I'm attending MOTM and would love to discuss how we can change and consider partnerships with other software companies. Foremost, I would like to learn where the grass may be greener. As @MarkChinsky pointed out, it seems Epicor may be even worse than Sage.. Don't want to go there ! What about 90 Minds as a buying group? Is that allowed?

@DougHiggs - I feel that other publishers is equivalent of swapping seats on the Titanic. If people feel that is the best move, that's fine. The real challenge facing us is that the reseller model is changing - very rapidly - despite any one particular publisher. Truthfully ... as hard as it may seem to believe ... Sage has some of the best margins and programs available still. I think the end goal is we all need to change our business models to be more focused on service revenue and adjust for the reality of little to no software margins. And, no, 90 Minds cannot be a buying group. If we all wanted to merge in to a mega practice, I suppose we could do that.

@PeterWolf We definitely need to have a session on options available for changing business models.... all merging into a mega practice? Certainly worth discussing...

Worth discussing. I've heard some of you snore and don't share the blankets though! Ok ... maybe that's me?

I am in the camp that is skeptical of the assumption that profitable margins will be available for high volume 5 years hence. Peter and Wayne are saying that our industry has matured to the point where the opportunity for adding value are no longer in the sales process. Hence, margins will continue to slide down. As an outlier that shows how bad it could get, consider salesforce.com: it has NO compensated channel at all, and all the supporting partners make their money from services. Now, I don't think that is generalizable to other products. But does reinforce Wayne's assertions that future margins will be in the 10%+/- range. It looks to me that is more likely than 30%+/-. Each of us needs to think about how we live in that world. To some degree, we are looking at the auto dealer model: dealerships use their sales not for margin but for the services that go with the new car. (If you haven't paid attention to the programs available at a new car dealership, spend some time ""shopping"" at one. You'll see a variety of annual service (warranty) contracts, periodic, fixed-price service programs, repairs on fixed-price basis, etc. My larger strategy is to expect product margin to maybe pay for new customer acquisition, nothing more. The services have to produce the profit. In order to that, we must all up our game in helping our customers recognize the value they can extract from their systems if they use them smarter -- when we do that, we supply the ""knowledge"" to produce that value. It is a different mindset, and it does NOT involve hourly billing.

Regarding Salesforce, It's easy offering no margins when your company is growing by leaps and bounds, your averages services project is 1000+ hours and your vendor is literally handing away the services for you to implement. When you have to sell, market, discount deal after deal to scrape up 50 hours here and there its a different story.

Funny timing (maybe no coincidence. Just got this from Syspro: SYSPRO USA Channel Partner Program Dear Mark, Do you feel that your ERP vendor: Has constant changes in their partner program? (Changing discounts/margins, changing requirements often, changing Partner support, etc.) Phases out products and encourages you to sell another product that may or may not- be an ERP system? Changes direction and focus from long-term goals to the latest and greatest trends because of Public Shareholders? Answer yes to any of the above? Then click the link below NOW to find out why SYSPRO Partners are so happy. Start out 2015 the right way - discover the benefits of the SYSPRO Partner Program.

No coincidence at all there.

I just attended the large CR Partner session on what is happening in my practice at ITA. ALL Large firms reported 20%+ annual growth in 2014 and many are expecting much higher in 2015. Several of these indicated that they were hiring and can't find enough good talent. The issue for 90 Minders is that they all also said that the legacy product lines were not driving their growth and that their newer product lines (primarily cloud based) were where they needed people. So if you want to work for someone else, pick a new product. There are some programs out in the market that are available which are much less onerous than the relationship we have with Sage. There are several publishers now offering OEM type arrangements where we can make commitments to licenses and then charge what we want and deploy what we want. Again, these are most beneficial to the larger partners, but a group like 90 Minds could come together, if a group of people would agree to learn a new trick and, if the group could create a ""raison d'etre"" for such a move. There are a few of the publishers which have this available for smaller quantities, but they tend to be smaller publishers with less critical mass. The point is, you have a choice while the economy is good. Whatever you choose to do, recognize that we can not ""trust"" our publishers and must make sure our business models are sound and do not bear too much ""concentration of risk"" in any one revenue source.

Just received the Syspro email also. Signing up today, I'm sure that will make everything better.(Joking) As stated many times here, service revenue is king. We are investing in our network managed services practice to diversify away from Sage and Abilia. We are still trying to figure out the best recurring revenue model related to ERP and I appreciate all the perspectives voiced on 90Minds. While this was not good news, I'm afraid another change is eventually going to come that is going to be more impactful than this one. I'll be surprised if at some point Sage doesn't drop Silver support all together and only offer Gold (like they have done with Subscription). Sage did it recently with Sage 50 and MIP Fund Accounting did it years ago. Be prepared to answer the question ""Why should I pay you for support when I already had to pay Sage for unlimited support"" While there is plenty of value we can provide our customers, I believe the low level support work is likely to end up with Sage in the long run.

@GaryFeldman - What is ""CR Partner""?

Epicor charges 20% maintenance and support. They provide all phone support in that fee so nothing in it for us. If we sell the deal, we keep 16.67% of the 20%. If they sold the deal and we pick it up as an orphan (they leave ALOT of those), we never get a cut on the maintenance and support. Their partner program sucks. Unfortunately their product is massively deeper and wider than 100 and in most areas even X3 so we stick with it.

Great point Bob. That's a growing concern of mine as well. @GaryFeldman - which publishers are offering the OEM type arrangements? You have me curious.

@JerryNorman - ITA has large CPA firms and Consulting and Reselling Partners. Sorry for my 2 letter TLA.

We have been approached by both SAP and Acumatica in the past 30 days. I believe you can also do this with open source vendors like xTuple. I would defer that particular one to @BrianRice or @PhilMcIntosh

The reality is, the harder a publisher is struggling to gain market recognition, the more generous they are with their partner program, margins, buy in costs, free training etc. If their product really is good and it starts to break through the noise, you can bet dollars to donuts, the partner program will then start the down hill roll. Just like you need very little to start a fast food franchise from an unknown player but millions to open a McDonalds

Mark, just to be clear, I do not think the saleforce model would work with any other product, and it is causing problems for them. But, consider that it is essentially a direct sales organization, which delivers partial services to its customers. Sound familiar?

SAP & Oracle has done it this way for 20 years in their upper tier products. A prior member of my Vistage CEO group started a Salesforce.com consultancy about 2 years after Salesforce was founded. Due to their deep relationships and Salesforces meteoric growth, they grew from a 1m/year consultancy to 70m/year in 6 years and never sold a dollar worth of salesforce license. A very special scenario

Peter touched on this, and it is particularly relevant in Mark's observation. Part of the value a publisher brings is marketing -- making the phone ring. If the market awareness is high (salesforce), margins are lower than if awareness must be generated by the dealer (xTuple). Sage is trying to have it both ways.

Now, now ... doesn't everyone want yesterday's newspapers? At a premium?

And that's the issue. Sage 100 has dropped off most people's radar for net new sales unless its the classic 'controller used it at his prior job and is comfortable with it' type decision. Perhaps with Sage's 'shiny' X3 they can get away with hard ass margins and requirements, but what they are doing with Sage 100 would be like mcdonalds taking the BigMac and charging $11.95 for it because that's what Smashburger or other premium burger places do.

@MarkChinsky I assume you offer 'premium' support beyond what Epicor provides in their maintenance/support plan. How do you offer or package the ongoing support you offer to your clients for your premium support?

it's difficult. Currently we just bill for any calls but make sure they know they can call Epicor first. Right now we are short handed so I actually like the Epicor takes the support calls, but if I can ever find more experienced consultants to hire, I'd change my tune. If you think it's hard hiring a MAS consultant which is a 34 year old product with 40,000 or so companies running it and a product you can get decent in, within about 6 months, than try finding an Epicor consultant that takes more like 2 years to master, with an 8,000 or so install base. I would say Epicor 10 has about 3x the depth and breadth of MAS. Epicor says Microsoft recognizes it as the largest scale .Net application ever built.

@MarkChinsky - You don't need 6 figures to start a new product line practice. One of my fellow panelists on the ""How to Transition to a Cloud or Hybrid Cloud Model was a NetSuite dealer (started 4 years ago). They were able to do it by having 3 partners willing to make personal sacrifices to start a new business and then use 1099 contractors around the country to provide services. We also have a new EBM in our SAP program who came out of a consulting firm and sold a 50 user subscription deal to make the break and is now consulting with them for the past 6 months and is working on his second deal. No sacrifice. Both of these had great planning...

Most of us owners started in this business on a shoestring. Usually taking advantage of a prior employer or moonlighting while trying to line up our first deal (like your 50 user guy). You could always make 'personal sacrifices' and work to sell even more of your existing product or bill more and use employees less for greater personal profits so I don't count that. The reality is, with all things being equal, the value of the time needed to start with a completely new product line is very substantial. For a small new product like Quickbooks, that might be $50k. For a massive manufacturing ERP system like Epicor, Syteline, IQMS or Syspro, you are well into 6 figures. I know the large X3 var's have invested 7 figures when you look at either acquisitions, the salaries/profit distributions of owners/partners to ramp up, the hiring involved, the marketing, the lost opportunity cost getting consultants trained, the loss of focus on the existing product line sales to focus on the new product line where you are at a big disadvantage due to lack of references and inexperience etc. I alone have invested well over a year learning how to Demo Epicor as Epicor will only provide demo services in the early stages and then you are at the mercy of their schedule.

What I never understand is why so many VARs think it's simple to just ""pick up CRM"" but they would never do that with a new ERP product line. In some ways, picking up a new ERP product would be easier than CRM which has different technology, sales approach, pain points, contacts, etc. Ah well.

No offense intended when I say that your evaluation was correct in the 80's and 90's and maybe even 2000's New rules are being created for new business models with new software and a new generation of owners. The NetSuite guy came from Lawson (down market) to capitalize on a new model.

Other than the software being rented instead of sold, what's different about selling, learning and implementing Netsuite than say another similar functioned 'traditional' product. What is he doing differently to start and build his business that we didnt' do when we started other than blasting out email and web campaigns instead of paper mail and telemarketing

Peter, having headed up ePartners NE CRM practice from about 1999 to 2002 coming from being a MAS90/500 var, I can say that it's no picnic, but learning, demoing, and selling CRM is alot easier than ERP. Now before you turn purple, I know that at the time, CRM (and to most companies today) was no more than multi-user advanced Contact Management. That functionality is about 10% of what full ERP is, especially with manufacturing. Taking CRM into (what microsoft calls XRM) is a whole different beast where instead of selling a 'product', you are now selling a base functionality, but most of the project is essentially business process re-engineering and custom development which is a completely different business than just 'reselling CRM'. Just like Macabe was a very different 'var' than most of us was with a huge focus on custom programming versus the rest of us trying to do as much as possible with the vanilla functionality

People buying cloud are not the same people buying Sage. Selling software or starting a consultancy does not necessarily mean generating your own leads by casting a wide net in the traditional manner. Some new VARs in other product lines (yes there is a thing called a new VAR) come into the market from an industry or a tangential market and pick up a cloud ERP product. Some people pick up a new product by starting as a business process analyst while they build detailed product knowledge. There are new models.

What is different about people 'buying cloud' than people buying premise?

I could tell you but I'm still stinging from the CRM comments. <sniff>

I dont' understand how they can spring a effective immediately on the maintenance. They've always said, until the quarter. This means 10k to my bottom line profit for Dec alone. What does this mean to yours? Can you imagine how much money they are making off this? Is there anything we can do???? Is there a reseller agreement in play that we have to lean back on? We used to have one. This is unprecedented and unbelievable.

Doug Higgs, they've axed that as far as maintenance goes, on the last change they made to the merger policy. that all your maintenance margins stay the same for 24 months. I suppose on new sales it does.

Yep, it is all that and more. Sage is taking over the sandbox. Little do they realize how hard we work at keeping the cats out of it. They have stooped to a new low on communication skills. Not much at this point to be done. Below is the link to the LinkedIn thread. I sent a note off to my RAM who only found out about an hour before the blast went out. Seems like a Monday afternoon massacre from the Grinch. We are planning to have several sessions at the February MOTM conference. If you have signed up, please consider coming down and participating. https://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=106271&type=member&item=5948099743912587267&trk=groups_most_recent-0-b-ttl&goback=%2Egmr_106271

@KarenEspinozaMcGarrigle I am referring to software sales tier not maintenance. I am basically a one man show with the occasional help of a few independent contractors. I was less than $1000 from moving from silver to gold. If I had the gold tier all of next year and did the same sales revenue it would mean several thousand dollars more in my pocket. However, I have never depended on software sales. My service revenue generates 80% of my margins and I view software sales as a bonus as they are not predictable. That doesn't make the sting of the immediate bar-raising less painful. It doesn't seem fair, and what really bothers me is how Sage tries make it seem that this change somehow benefits us. They must think we are all idiots.

Bob Anderson from Gartner was specifically asked the question, ""if a publisher was starting a new cloud based ERP system, would they use a channel or sell direct?"" Although he did not answer definitively, he said that the publishers believe that the channel is not changing fast enough or delivering enough value so they are moving towards a direct model. @WayneSchulz should chime in anytime as he asked a similar question at the conference...

The channel is ""not delivering enough value""??? What planet is he living on? Has he tried calling Sage support lately? Who does he think does the version upgrades?

Value = selling more software.

@DougHiggs In theory, 'pure play' saas solutions, the upgrades are handled by the publisher. That being said, many vendors attempting to do saas with their traditional solutions are running into the same upgrade problems that on-premise products have. Just got a call from a SaaS epicor client yesterday who was moved from version 9 to version 10 and then had to move back to 9 after one day due to problems other company's on the same server were having. That being said, where vendors who think they want to go direct fail, is they don't truly realize how expensive it is to field an internal sales force which includes a team of demo gurus and analysts. Unless your product is pretty upscale due to the revenue needed from the sale vs. the effort required to close it, it usually fails. Even netsuite, the sweetheart of SaaS ERP is learning this lesson (and who is yet to make a penny of GAAP profit), and is moving so far upmarket that I think they now see their competitors as SAP & Oracle and far less Sage or Microsoft (except maybe X3 and AX). Epicor is again pushing their direct sales reps up market and the turnover in that group is like 75% per year.

At ITA Netsuite said their average sale is $80k. That's $7kish every month. They'd like to say they play in the $10k a year market but I do not think that's generally true.

@MarkChinsky I like your analysis. SaaS and on premise are clearly different markets with overlap being hybrid. If the publisher believes that the channel has limited value because (value = sales) then I believe this is misguided rational. I sold $200K of software this year.... $100K was Sage, $100K was 3rd party developers. $80K of the Sage sales were to existing users. I'm the person who spends countless emails and telephone conferences doing demos, touting the benefits of various add-ons. The sale of 3rd party products allows companies like ScanForce and ACSG become Sage Summit sponsors. Sage 100, as an on premise solution clearly needs the channel. If they keep sucker punching us, and believe our only value is new product sales then this is a horrible long-term strategy.... it may be beneficial in the short term as profits look good after they just cut many of our commissions for next year... but taking the position that the channel's value is only as good as the product sales is penny wise and pound foolish. In the long term, Sage will sell more software with a strategy that includes great service (coupled with a great and modern product) using the most qualified channel partners. This strategy creates a reputation and leads to more software sales and long term relationships.

I've done channel consulting in the 90's and ran one in the late 80's when the industry was starting to figure it out. There are 4 key points of value that a vendor can expect from a channel, and not all are relevant for each industry. Sage has been pretty explicit in telling the channel how it wants it to behave. It has monetary goals for growth; coop mktg is only available if you arrange an agreeable marketing plan with Sage and execute to it. It wants you to cross-sell, and has incentives for that. What it doesn't want the channel to do is mainly work with existing customers, providing services. The channel isn't executing on this, and revenue suffers (not necessarily cause-effect), so Langner & Crew grasp at straws to buy a bit of time hoping that the strategy will work with more time. ""zero-touch selling"" was panned earlier in this thread. That is a mistake. Google the term (low-touch is better) and read what it's about. IMO Sage recognizes that ERP customers who are susceptable to low-touch sales is where the new-sales market is at now. I agree. Our current Sage 100 customers don't necessarily qualify - their mindsets are often not there. I see why the new CEO is a big fan of this. It's not really all BS. But it does require product and marketing features that Sage lacks. I think Sage NA has become tone deaf to how really manage a channel. I understand that, and I was guilty of that periodically in my past. I think they are boxed in: X3 can't carry the weight needed to makes revenue quota, and they (can't or won't) enhance their legacy products to excite the market. HQ won't let them spend real ad $$ to increase awareness in mid-market, and a half-decade of constant layoffs has hollowed the company to the point it only knows how to go through the motions. Until H is gone, and his team with him, there is little chance this will change. What are ya gonna do about it? There are options, but relying on Sage to wise up isn't one of them.

Bingo @JerryNorman ""But it does require product and marketing features that Sage lacks."" Yes, it's quite a dream to have customers sending you checks or credit card authorizations with no effort. Actually more of a fantasy than a dream. I know that certain people at Sage felt that mobility would ... repeat after me ... ""sell itself."" I've heard from many inside sources that they are about to throw the towel in on it because it's actually not selling itself and, in fact, it's not selling at all. Millions of dollars in R&D down the sh*tter with some get rich quick scheme. What would Sage accomplish if they reinvested all the dollars transferring from customers and partners back in to the product and in to marketing? At the end of the day, it's really pointless to discuss. Sage Execs are going to do what they feel is right. They will all move on within 3 - 5 years to different jobs while we are here for the long run. So instead of reacting to their short term disruptions to our businesses, we need to get our butts in gear and carve out our long-term plans. What does life look like for resellers in two, five, ten years? It isn't getting rich on software (Sage or any other publisher) margins - I can guarantee that.

Sage does appear to be clueless about how unappealing a half-done product is to customers who are not ""marks."" I am not as cynical as many 90 Minders, but even I can't shake the feeling that Sage NA either thinks they know what is best for the customers, or that customers are essentially rubes who will get excited about the latest ""thing"" so that Sage can pull a fast one on them. Sage's collective ignorance about the potential of stand alone CRM to revive some of their revenue is mind boggling. That is something that the new management might actually reverse -- but I doubt it. Past is Prologue. Sage is likely no worse than the other channels for products most 90 Minders would be interested in working with. So Peter is absolutely correct: software margins will be secondary or tertiary to partners' success in the near future.

I say it all of the time... usually no one is listening..... We could recommend any of the top 5 or 6 ERP products to 90% of our customer base and configured properly would do a great job.... The skills of the consultant... business and process analysis, configuration, conversion skills, training, etc is the most important variable. You can spent millions on the best software.. set it up incorrectly and the money is wasted. Google Nestle SAP or Nike SAP and read of some classic examples.

Regarding the mobility products... I am sure there are several reasons they are not selling... from my perspective, and I am surely not alone, it is difficult to even figure out how to demo the products. I spent a couple of days trying to get access to the demo sites, let alone learn the features well enough to discuss with a client... if they would have taken all of the mobility cash and put it into something customers are actually asking for such as web site integration for popular products like Magento, Xcart, and others, manufacturing modules like Job Cost and BOM, MRP, they might have something people are willing to invest in. Problem is, they can't squeeze any more cash out of improvements to the manufacturing modules as that would be funded b y maintenance. Another short term view with long term consequences.

When your mobile sales doesn't allow you to add new customers or view historical sales (unless it was on that tablet) then your product is too weak to compete. The mobiles sales and service is just too weak to sell. When you do mobile sales and you take CC, the system only creates an invoice. Does not create a Sales Order to be shipped. These were just a few of the issues I saw when I looked at it last.

I agree that we can not rely upon publishers for margin, but what if I could give you one or two of the top 5 or 6 products for a fixed price per month in the cloud and then you could sell the subscription bundled with your services for whatever price you felt the market would bare. Assuming these were mainstream supportable ERP, would you be interested? And no @PeterWolf and @DougHiggs not even Salesforce sells by itself. But people assume it is good because of a name. Magento is a market leader and people need to sell it. Sage 100 sells by itself to people who know and love it (and unfortunately that is all I see it selling to). SAP, Intacct and NetSuite are no better than other products in the shortlist, but customers go to them because they have a name that creates buzz. Acumatica may create a little buzz today (kind of lack a gnat in NetSuite's ear). Sage and Infor...

Just to spray a little more gas on the flames - I did not hear a peep from Sage at ITA about Sage Data Cloud. If connected services and SDC go nowhere it will be reorg time.

Does anyone think a re-org can be avoided? Pascal wasn't tapped for the top dog position, there is a new guy who has a new style, the old guard is pulling in anemic numbers, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 The longer I do this dance, the worse it gets. We are here for life and these guys are here for a few years. They come in and make their changes, do their damage, and then move on. It all goes back to the same idea: the reseller model needs to evolve.

SDC is the component of their strategy that makes the most sense if you listen to the talking heads at Gartner or from the mobility standpoint

Reorg is inevitable. Pascal has strengths, but I still think it is a mistake to put a European in charge of an American sales organization. And ""sales"" really is the purpose of Sage NA. I will be shocked if H's replacement isn't an American Sr Exec at an enterprise application firm with a significant channel. On second thought, ""shocked"" might not be correct, but my profile is the only way they have a ghost of a chance of recovering. Wayne' observation is disturbing. It tells me that Sage NA has no clue that part of maintaining a channel is by building its confidence in the company's technology. And yet the CMO didn't even attempt to thread that needle. I agree with Gary that SDC really is an important component in Sage's future. Sadly their execs don't seem to know how to get customers to understand it. (Of course, part customer embracing it would be to have products that are actually useful (Mobility) and that don't lock customers in (SPS). But then, customers really are only marks in their con game.

Did you read Bob Scott's commentary how it sounds like more product 'pruning' is coming to Sage. Wonder which is next on the chopping block.

No, but it doesn't shock me. More short-term, ""please the investors"" thinking. Like announcing what BU you are going to sell before finding a buyer. Nobody every ""pruned"" their way to market growth.

Has Sage really spent millions of dollars on those dinky mobile toys?

In the ""old"" days, when a new product was released, Sage would send a not-for-resale disk to all of the partners, along with written instructions. This made it easy to install, learn, and demo the product. When the mobile apps were released, we have to search around on one of the web sites and hopefully remember the secret password. When you can't figure it out you have to call someone in sales, or your rep and hope they can direct you. This is a communication issue. If they don't make it easy for us to sell what do they expect? Sometimes email and web sites are not progressive...... Try a personal letter (USPS) once in a while... it can be a much more effective form of communication.

And you hoped that the disk actually loaded........... But to your point @DougHiggs, Sage's communication skills are non existent.

@DougHiggs You are asking for a lot considering that the CEO has a difficult time with English.

pas de la merde

That's what Stephen Kelly said: ""Merde indeed, Pascal! Raise the tier thresholds!

I still remember the first meeting, when he was having a lot of trouble with the word ""focus""; now our jokes at that time are coming back to haunt us :-(

Haunt? That's what is keeping us sane.

I knew there was a party going on - I just couldn't make it here in time. To pick up @GaryFeldman's mention, xTuple doesn't have an OEM option on the table but they are - as has been mentioned in this thread - attempting to develop a channel (think: honeymoon phase). Still, for as well as things are going with them, I'm never going to hang any hopes on license or maintenance margins.

One of the things that attracted me to xTuple was the PostBooks option: if the customer can live with a few limitations, they get a Sage 100/300 level product for $0 license cost, and I still get $10-25k in implementation revenue. If the customer later decides the advanced features in the paid versions are worth it, they pay the license fee, run a script on the database (no change on the clients), and just need to train on the new features. ""Customers for life"" actually implemented!

@CullenLowe - I remember thinking, while falling over from laughing so hard, ""that's the one word of truth in the whole speech"".

Dear Joe, We started a discussion on Monday in response to your eloquently written BOHICA announcement, and we now have over 100 comments, meaning it's an important topic here at 90 Minds. By the time our MOTM conference takes place in late February, we may be over it and on to other discussions. Of course, you can always travel to San Diego for lunch one of those days and try to explain whether there was some purpose other than increasing the bottom line and making your new CEO look good. Thanks for listening. Sincerely, John

Hey everyone! Like @BrianRice I am also late to the party. I did read all of the comments so I could catch up, and it looks like a great topic of discussion at MOTM. @MarkChinsky used the term unionize. I'm curious, if we could mobilize the majority of the Sage channel and boycott Summit 2015, does anyone think that would work in the Channel's favor? Or, would Sage use that as ammunition to squeeze the Channel even more? @JerryNorman said something like ""at this point he doesn't care much because Sage can't backoff now"", and I am of the same mindset. I'm tired of complaining to executives at Sage. I have a business to run, and the most disappointing aspect of my business is that it puts dollars in Sage's coffers. Sage has long forgotten that it was the Channel who built this customer base, and those greedy bastards (is it OK for me to use that word?) are seriously trying to put all of us out of business. What do we do every year? We give them more money by going to Summit. WTF??? I honestly believe if none (wishful thinking, but maybe a majority) of the Sage Channel partners signed up for Summit we could send a message that might get their attention. When Sage called to ask us to sign up, we could simply come up with a unified slogan or response to succinctly explain that we can't afford it. The argument that we show up to voice our concerns clearly isn't working. It's time to punch the bully in the mouth. Of course, not going to Summit might be childish and accomplish absolutely nothing. Curious what the rest of you think. Aside from dropping Sage products altogether, what else can we, as a Channel, do to show solidarity in these issues?

Good thoughts Brian. Here's my personal view for what it's worth: Think about it as a personal relationship. If your significant other started looting the joint bank account to buy things for themselves, what are your options? I think it depends on your SO's attitude. If your SO is reasonable and loves you and wants to maintain the relationship, you can probably explain to them why their actions are hurtful, disrespectful, and damaging to the long-term relationship. If your SO has already disengaged from the relationship to a good degree and decided that the relationship is a necessary evil and that you aren't pulling your weight (which completely justifies their behavior in their mind), then nothing that you do will make a difference. This includes (but is not limited to!) explaining your point of view, holding your breath, pulling your hair out, making fun of them, and not going to their dinner parties. Your SO isn't going to change and those actions just make you look like a nutcase to your common friends. The real change has to come from within you. If you understand that the love is gone, you can have a whole new perspective on your SO. Maybe they make you laugh sometimes, maybe it's great to have someone with you on double dates, maybe you have a timeshare in Cabo together that you want to keep. So maybe you want to keep the relationship but you need to change your outlook. Hit the gym, improve your personal finances, shower more regularly, go for your annual physical, put money in to your retirement every year, etc. Start doing the things that you know will make you happy and preserve your well being for the long-term - with or without your SO.

@PeterWolf So what are going to do? I've been hitting the gym and contributed to my retirement. ??

This bi%$h won't keep her hands off my atm card.

@BrianKelly Yes, you are welcome to use the 'B"" word. South Park made that acceptable years ago, and those are just little kids, right?

We all continue to attend Summit, because we're afraid we might miss something, such as classic comments from Pascal and Neon Trees.

Actually I am looking forward to Summit this year JUST to go on @ChuckPeddy 's midnight cemetery tour and other fun NOLA events that he is planning. Just don't tell my SO what I am doing......

SO... if we think Summit's value is the networking, you can do that without necessarily attending. I go to the SAP Field Kick Off Meeting every year for the past 3 years without buying a ticket. I schedule meetings with the partners and SAP execs in the bar or restaurant on-site that I want to meet with and fly out the next day. Saves hotel and conference costs and gets me my value. I think we all believe that the MOTM and pre-conference training from 90 Minds had more content than the Sage 100 Road Again session at Summit! Perhaps we take @BrianKelly and @PeterWolf 's idea from last year and have our own conference in New Orleans and meet with our Sage representatives at the convention center or down the street at a local haunt. Unfortunately I will probably have to give them 2 pounds of flesh to exhibit just in case something changes with the next regime.

I may go to @ChuckPeddy 's parties, but NOT Summit...

I don't think Sage would regret partners not attending. Everything they've done to this point is aimed at keeping partners away. Boycotting the event is exactly what they want. It wasn't an accident two years ago when partner lanyards were black.

After placing a substantial order today, I noticed that Sage has done what they said in their announcement: ""and starting Monday, December 8, 2014, the associated Sage Business Care margins will be applied."" The Business Care margin was posted at the Gold level. I have officially protested this change, since it is contrary to what is detailed in the original Tier Benefit Program as of 7/1/2014. Margin adjustment on product and Business Care was to be adjusted down on 12/31. This has been in place less than 6 months, yet it appears to mean very little.

It's already been a long week. What exactly is happening here, John?

Come to the Dark Side Luke...

I think John is saying Sage cut margin on maintenance without the advance notice their original tier program stated they would give.

@JohnHoyt - curious to learn what comes of your written protest, although I won't hold my breath. @PeterWolf - if this were truly a personal relationship, I would have been divorced back in 2009. There is no give and take in this relationship with Sage. It is simply take what Sage gives you. For many of us, we have built our businesses on MAS 90 (or BusinessWorks, CRM, MAS 500, etc.), and we have many customers who depend on us to be there for them. So far, even though Sage continues to devalue its channel, many of us are still in business and continue to take care of *our* customers that we brought to Sage. We no longer sleep in the same bed with Sage, we no longer eat dinner together, we no longer go on dates, etc. Both of us are hurting in this relationship, but the channel is ambivalent at this point. Sage is irrational, apathetic and greedy. I remain in this relationship for now, but I am looking. I'm just not stupid enough to think the next relationship won't eventually end up very similar to this one. As for Summit, I agree with @BrianRice that Sage probably wouldn't care if we didn't show up. As for this most recent announcement on Tier changes, I believe it is a knee jerk reaction to unexpected results of the tier changes in July. What I mean by that is the July tier changes worked out to our advantage, and we were close to reaching the next tier before Sage made these new changes. I believe that we were not in the minority, and Sage made these new changes due to the perception that the July tier changes were going to negatively impact Sage. Did anyone else experience positive benefits from the July tier changes?

I think @BrianKelly is dead on. It was a knee Jerk reaction. We moved up tier. The tier changes encouraged moving up and they were reachable goals. My guess is that they looked at the projection and realized they may have had more sells but didn't make as much since more of us were reaching the next tier or tier stretches. They instantly cut the margin on the product that is sold more consistently in every month that they can project a savings, Maintenance. I can hear it now, Look at all the money I saved Sage! I am going to put that on my resume. Sage Software - - Developed and executed financial sales strategies focused on driving product and service value, product differentiation, and specific impacts to bottom line. - Increased profit by 25% by re-engineering reseller channel

@WayneSchulz - Thanks for the explanation. I'm not sure what the margins are on ERP side. On CRM, I have maxed out at 20% - it's been like that forever. If they did that with ERP, they must be giddy in Irvine thinking about the extra 15% that Sage gets to make. One key component to Sage's numbers is that annual maintenance is usually twice new sales in any given year. It's one more factor that allows them to perpetuate the internal thinking that partners aren't as valuable as they really are.

In order to understand this just follow the Sage UK earnings releases and statements. North America takes orders from UK and exists to please them - at least until NA shows revenue growth. Tanking of Sage Payments is a big black cloud on NA horizon.

@WayneSchulz - In order to understand this, there would need to be a strategy. It would presume that a software company would understand what technology it owned, purchased or is developing to meet an objective. It almost strikes me of a VC firm seeing a shiny object and purchasing it without having an understanding of what they are buying or how to run it. So you end up with strategy du jour to prop up the current management team until they are replaced for their slowly eroding financial situation. Long tail cash cow...

The strategy is clear: 1) make the customers pay more until they scream. 2) squeeze the partners because they aren't going anywhere, 3) report ""organic"" growth! Nowhere in the strategy is improve products or improve marketing. These guys need to go back and read the basics from Peter Drucker.

I still struggle to think of any new product Sage 'programmed' without the product or the programming team being acquired from another company. It's nothing but 'maximizing shareholder wealth position' in their eyes. And that's a noble goal of capitalism but the goal and execution are different. That's why there are winners and losers in capitalism. The losers will be Sage in the long run and the partners that blindly stick with them either because of some odd loyalty, or exhaustion/laziness to go through the hell that is switching solutions.

Many of us are willing to go through the hell of switching solutions if we knew which solution we should switch to. If we all could agree in one alternative solution and started migrating clients to it, it may make some noise.

Hence why we have the session at MOTM

@DougHiggs - The issue with picking one product is that many of us have different customer bases. I am certain @MarkChinsky would highly recommend Epicor for larger manufacturing customers to replace JobOps, but @BrianRice and @PhilMcIntosh would recommend xTuple for smaller customers who need custom solutions. Many VARs who work with Not For Profit and Professional services seem to be migrating to Intacct since Taylor got there. Picking one solution will be problematic. In our company we have always had at least two solutions (which is hard for a small organization) to have one more customizable and one more out of the box to meet the needs of our predominant local horizontal industry (distribution). Just like @WayneSchulz was looking to add Sage 300 to this community it is hard to diversify and yet keep focus, expertise and interest. We did a session last year at MOTM, but it really ended up being more of a discussion on a single product. I would suggest that if a session were planned it would either be the process of picking up a new product (which I believe @ShawnSlavin would be good to talk about) or possibly a panel discussion with people who have or are currently diversifying. I do believe it would be great if we could get a critical mass for any one or two new products within this group or as a sister group because 90 Minds is a truly unique organization with a wealth of talent concentrated on a dying product.

@GaryFeldman Thanks for the input... Those are great comments.. I look forward to my first MOTM conference in Feb. We certainly have plenty to discuss.

@WayneSchulz is correct - Sage cut margin on maintenance without the advance notice their original tier program stated they would give. My e-mail to my RAM/RSM (whatever) copied the pertinent paragraphs from the ""guidelines"" and FAQ, and they are clear in several places about the 12/31 date. Apparently Sage is following the pirate's code detailed in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - ""And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules.

I was planning to post this on the LinkedIn discussion, but I'll wait until I get a response on my protest. Update: We've succeeded in maintaining our tier already, even with the rule changes. Making the next one in 2015 will be difficult, however. I want to remind everyone of the Sage Guiding Principles. The details behind Simplicity, Trust, Agility, Innovation and Integrity are difficult to find anywhere, but I have them. Two of these come to mind in this situation - Trust and Integrity. Trust Our customers need to know and believe that we are on their side, that we are there to help them run a better business and that the advice we offer and the services we provide are in their best interests. Integrity Keeping promises is vital in building trust and loyalty with our customers and our people. Whether it's as simple as telling someone you'll do something and then doing it, or providing reliable, quality products on time to the marketplace, integrity is central to maintaining our credibility. I'm not sure Sage is guilty of breaching these principles. They're just really, really bad at communication and implementation, which comes as no surprise to this group. What is important to note is that these refer to ""customers and our people"" only. Channel partners could be considered part of ""our people"", but are we? The definition of customer is ""one that purchases a commodity or service"", so we definitely fit into that classification. Channel Partners are customers.

For the exploration at MOTM, does anybody have a suggested compare/contrast format to use? My main concern is getting blindsided by idiot limitations in a new product that don't exist in Sage 100. For example, I already know where 100's issues are and we avoid them. It does many processes fundamental to small distribution very well & reliably, so I take them for granted, perhaps not reasonably. I thought last year's new product presentation at MOTM was unsatisfying. Are there others that might want to collaborate with me to make this year's better?

At my first MOTM I also suggested putting together a competitive sales team to do what you are talking about. It is a truly monumental task that could not be completed before MOTM at any level of detail (higher than the Charles Chewning level and lower than the Carlton Collins level). I would be glad to participate if we could limit scope to the distribution bundle or some reasonable amount of required research.

As Gary pointed out earlier, what product you choose, has alot to do with who you think is your target market. Sure Epicor can do 95% of what MAS can do, and 300% of things MAS can't do, but yet a typical MAS target prospect would often find Epicor overwhelming. This is the kind of targeting that's important when selecting a system. If you want to stay in the same smaller distribution company with at most light manufacturing, that very much narrows down the field. If you decide that your business has been growing well thanks to Jobops and having a 'real' job shop competent manufacturing ERP solution, than that's a different set of options. I know this isn't the place, but If I were looking for the most ""MAS90 like"" solution, i.e. what MAS90 should be like if they had actually continued to re-architect and improve it, I'd say from what I've seen, SAP Business One is the closest fit from a price, ease of use, functionality standpoint. Sure there is stuff MAS can do that B1 can't and vice versa, but overall I'd say they are the most like products in terms of breadth and depth that I've seen. It also doesn't hurt that @GaryFeldman can still work with you and host it. We have some really good B1 demos here that you may want to look at before MOTM http://business-one-sap.com/video-demos/ The Australian person doing the demo is now the main demo guy working for Accumatica FYI. If you think the future is cloud, then I would say Accumatica is the closest of the saas products to MAS90 functionality and pricing. Accumatica is obviously much smaller than SAP or Sage, but they have some healthy VC money backing and a much lower burn rate than some competitors so I think they will survive.

We have been approached by two mid-market ERP publishers to present at MOTM. As of now we are still finalizing the schedule and don't know if we have slots to make the sessions happen this year. One of the publishers is Acumatica and the other xTuple.

Those 2 are a good start. Seems SAP B1 should be included also. Can we invite someone from SAP to make a presentation?

I can ask the woman who is the West Coast Channel manager but would not want to do that until the schedule is confirmed. Per conversations with SAP VP Sales they are not actively recruiting partners now (except a few strategic). The SAP partner program is much more selective and if you do not make a quota ($50k to SAP annually) they do de-certify you and recommend you associate with a Master VAR and an Extended Business Member until you can re-apply with volume. I-BN is one of the 3 Master VARs in North America. An official SAP EBM can represent themselves as an EBM (utilize logos, access to KB, etc.).

As of now we have a full slate of presentations. When we know more about which vendor members have renewed with us (we expect most will) then we will know more about open slots. For practical purposes I don't think we are going to have a large number of publishers -- rather we are going to rely upon our members to present their experiences. We have several members who are VERY experienced with Epicor and SAP and some just beginning with Intact and Acumatica and those candid discussions are what we will focus on (member feedback about the products). This is obviously a hot(ter) topic now that Sage has further shown their colors regarding the tier/channel gymnastics. We will look at further opportunities to get information to members about other publisher options.

I'm with Wayne. I am interested in compare/contrast sorts of discussions. It's a rare vendor rep who can do that well.