Sage News and Discussion

Just in case anyone has not seen the 4.50 download site yet: http://www.sagemas.com/45release

Does this allow you to download?

Where do the ""get started"" phone numbers lead to? I guess I'm confused. Is this a winback landing page?

Well that's odd -- the download link is missing.

I also noticed that the S/O spec sheet is still the ""print ready"" spec sheet with the black and white boxes and color boxes along the top. Sage apparently rushed to get this out, they did not finish it correctly.

Has anyone heard of v4.5 shipping to the installed base yet?

I still don't understand why this points people to an 800 number either. If the goal is to educate them and get them to want to upgrade - why do they need to call an 800 number unless this is a landing page for a winback or some email campaign

The 877 number rings to MAS90 sales autoattendant

Also note that there is free anytime learning for 4.5 -- rather than fight it I think that I would specifically point this out to customers that they can take the free training online from Sage. I'd rather they hear it coming from me than from a Sage email.

Good point about the free training, Wayne.

I'm going to be aggressively pointing these out. 1. Free CRM <> no cost to install train 2. Free SMI <> no cost to install train 3. Free training = please use (most of my customers probably won't) I am conflicted about the setup of CRM/SMI during the upgrade. Most customer probably won't want to pay extra for it. For a small percent of customers not having installed CRM and SMI will leave me vulnerable to future questions of ""Why wasn't this setup / shouldn't we have been using this / why wasn't Schulz on top of this "" ....

Don't overlook the fact that CRM requires some sort of SQL flavor. While the larger installs do have a copy installed, many smaller ones do not (at least mine don't). And if you don't have a copy, then chances are you don't have anyone to manage/administer it either. This will also add to the price tag.

If they just want to try out the CRM one user SQLExpress is OK (SageCRM will even offer to install it). Just make it clear that production use will require at least SQL Server Standard edition. Also be aware that Windows 2008 doesn't install IIS by default, so that may need to be installed and set up as well.