General Consultant Discussion

My husband got an email from Mark Moore, Enterprise Business Specialist, Sage Enterprise Management, Sage Business Cloud, Sage ERP Solutions saying: We at SAGE Software hope this email finds you well today! I am reaching out to see if you are exploring ERP/ EM solutions or unsatisfied with your present vendor. We would like to explore how our ERP solutions and service will be a quality solution to your problem. Now or in the future. Please email me with your questions, response or availability. I look forward to hearing from you soon. This was to his work email address and no, he would not be the one to choose a new ERP system!! WTH?

#spam

This is nothing more than companies still trying to use 'interrupt marketing' and likely failing miserably at it

You gotta love the guy's title!

It was like this: Mark Moore Enterprise Business Specialist Sage Enterprise Management Sage Business Cloud Sage ERP Solutions

Too funny! Surely one of those titles resonates with your husband. At least enough to get him to respond to Mark's request of ""We would like to explore how our ERP solutions and service will be a quality solution to your problem. Now or in the future.

His email to me was, ""Know this guy?"" And the subject line was, ""Exploring your present ERP status

Here's the one I got. At my work email. Do they not have a list of their resellers? My favorite part of the email is the ""...and Sage 500"". Nothing about Sage 500...just...""and Sage 500"". Hello Sue- Just thought I would touch base and send a high overview of our accounting products for your team. Also, would your company be interested in any additional applications such as payroll, HRMS, Fixed Assets etc.? For full cloud accounting software we have: Sage Business Cloud Accounting (for small companies and startups=5-10 employees, typically under 10 users on the system-not multi-company-no payroll or inventory, no ability to migrate older date into the system) Sage Business Cloud Financials (for companies that may already use Salesforce as Financials is built NATIVELY on that platform; fast growing SMBs=10-1000+ employees and over 5 users on the system who want to scale up quickly without the time and cost of a full ERP, also multi-company, built via dimensional accounting). Also, this solution has features specifically for Non Profits. Sage Intacct (for larger SMBs=100-2000+ employees and typically 10 users or more who want full ERP and light inventory, best for service oriented companies) Sage Business Cloud Enterprise Management (for larger companies who want a full ERP system with strong inventory=200 or more employees typically and full inventory for manufacturing/fabrication/Food & Beverage/Chemicals/Oil & Gas etc.) Also, we have legacy products that are not full cloud but rather on premise solutions that offer cloud storage and remote user access. They have full inventory and payroll in the system: Sage 50Cloud -desktop hybrid for small businesses (3 versions: pro=1 user/1 company; premium =2-5 users/2 companies; quantum=+ users and multi company) Sage 100Cloud -desktop hybrid for medium businesses (over 10K transactions on system per month) to handle manufacturing, fabrication, oil & gas, chemicals, food and beverage, etc. Sage 300Cloud -desktop hybrid similar to !00 above but definitely used for multi currency and international business and Sage 500 Plus: Sage 100 and 300 CRE (construction, real estate) Please keep us in mind for referrals if you are not looking for new accounting software this year. Regards, Elizabeth Walker Sage Business Cloud Representative

Most people would stop reading and delete this by the time they reach line 2. The only reason I would read to the end is to be amused at bad grammar and misused words. If Elizabeth could write well, perhaps not, but there is no hook, just too many words. Based on that she is not even a good sales or marketing person. And she has worked at Sage in this job since 2016! #andSage500

@ThereseLogeais - Hopefully your husband's firm selects you as their reseller.....

I would hope so!

@JohnHoyt - In addition to the ludicracy factor of her solicitation of us, the reason I read the entire email was because I wanted to see how she was selling some of these products - what it was she was saying to prospects. ""And we have legacy products that are not full cloud...

A better email would look like this: ""I know you're busy so let me get straight to the point. I am automatically removing your name from this list. There is no need for you to do anything. Sincerely, Random sales person who bought or rented a list of names

Grapevine has it that your husband has already received multiple quotes!

More to the point, you work for one of the largest software companies in the world with a marketing department that dwarfs most third world countries and this is the crap you come up with?

Well, what can you do when your boss puts ""cloud"" in the name of things even a salesperson can tell aren't...of course they probably are incentivised to sell anything but the ""legacy products"". The following was a footnote in an email sent to a Sage 300 customer pushing subscription: ""*Please note that Sage300cloud Subscription is not actually a cloud software. It is still an On Premise software that resides on your server but has the capability for full integration with Sage's Business Cloud Products. It is the same 300 ERP software you have enjoyed just with enhanced features and capabilities. It is considered an upgrade not a new software.

Cloud Computing as defined on the Microsoft Azure website: ""Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing servicesservers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, intelligence and moreover the Internet (""the cloud"") to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change."" If you host Sage 100/300/500 with a service such as I-Business Network, are these no longer On Premise solutions? The problem is that there are different flavors or variations of the cloud computing definition. Sage thought they could gain more sales by simply putting cloud in the names. When they were challenged on this, then they came up with the ""cloud connected services"" explanation - a lame explanation at best. Sage didn't go far enough. If they wanted to ""pretend"" the legacy products could be cloud products, then they should have enlisted I-BN and other private cloud services, as well as AWS and Azure implementations, and set those up as the standard deployment. Then, as with one of their competitors, they make it clear that customers also have the flexibility to run the software On Premise. This has been a failed marketing effort from Sage, primarily because it's a revolving door for top management resulting in no real commitment or ownership.

I recently moved our Sage 100 to Azure, and Lee had to program a payroll bug fix because it wouldn't update payroll because it couldn't find some direct deposit file (which we don't even use). Lee had called Sage support and was told ""Yeah, that doesn't work on Azure

I like how Shakespeare positioned the cloud! On-premise or The Cloudthat is the question. Whether tis nobler in mind to suffer the slings and arrows of On-premise, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by the Cloud end them. On-premise the Cloud, no more; and by the Cloud to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. The Cloud, perchance to dreamay, there's the rub.

Oh and just a side note @all our 90 Minds partners, we offer a huge discount if you want to move your Sage 100, Sage 300 or Sage 500 system to the cloud including free demo environments, free upgrade servers, great support and a true private cloud where your resources are dedicated to your server and not shared like Azure and AWS.

@JohnHoyt It reminds me of 2000 when every company put ""e"" in their name. e-Partners, E by Epicor etc etc.

So would that be Sage e100cloud or Sage 100ecloud? Or perhaps Sage can cover everything by changing their name to Sag-e.

Not sure when, but at some point I am pretty sure Sage is going to change it's name to the [Sirius Cybernetics Corporation](http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Sirius_Cybernetics_Corporation)...

Probably Sag-e for AI....

Yay - Sirius Cybernetics Corporation! Similarities: 1. They invented ""revolving doors"". 2. Superficial design flaws are covered up by the company's marketing division.

eSage - makers of ""cloud-like"" applications for 50 years and counting!

eSage marketing to farmers: Subscribe to our ""cloud"" products and drought will be a thing of the past! (What arrives by mail: a bottle of water).

How do you know when a trend is nearly over?"" ""Sage re-brands products around it."" I'll be here all week.

Does nobody notice that the industries listed for Sage 100cloud are arguably the products weakest? Why not lead with wholesale distribution? ECommerce / Omni-Channel . Area's that the product is actually strong in. On what planet does Sage 100 have a dominant position in food?

Marketing to their strengths? Sage? rofl...MOTM is going to the be best advertising they'll have all year. And they know it.

There is no continuity at Sage. In film shooting and editing this is how they make sure the actor continues to wear the hat he just had on a minute ago. It's a disaster with Sage, because the entire person disappears (revolving door), and there apparently is no documentation or communication of what they have done up to now. So they make things up. ""Let's mention the food industry, because everyone can relate to that.

Perfect timing John... my daughter's movie is starting to be advertised by Netflix!

@BobTobey Which one is it?

@john Hoyt...Abducted in Plain Sight between Mr. Rogers and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Google it. It's an interesting film based on a true story.

It's a shameless plug but dad's proud and she's due for some good things to happen!

Doesn't the C now stand for 'cloudy?'

Or clueless.

Or confused.

Clueless and Confused, a remake of the slightly different titled film from 1993, except this would be a documentary.

It makes me wonder... if the Dilbert ideas for Marketing vs Engineering come straight from Sage. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5JrfgbCEAAbkUv.png

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/dilbertandmodernmarketing-141001130531-phpapp01/95/dilbert-and-modern-marketing-1-638.jpg?cb=1412296999

Honestly, I'm not sure why some big company hasn't sued Sage over forcing them into a Subscription that, if expires, makes their software read-only. Especially after some of the larger companies have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years for their perpetual license - I just don't understand why Sage hasn't been sued yet.

I'm sure they have alot of good lawyers who looked at this to clear the way they are doing it.

Sadly @MarkChinsky, I'm sure you are right. It just seems so wrong ...

Wouldn't it need to be a class action suit against all software companies? Microsoft is forcing everyone to Office 365 and beginning next year, you won't be able to purchase a desktop version. The executive O365 plans will offer it for 5 devices on subscription.

I've never understood how any of the software licenses can get away with ""we can change the terms anytime we want and you can't"". Seems like it violates the basic definition of a contract.

Not that I have any desire to defend Sage, but the customers that migrated to subscription ""chose"" to trade-in their perpetual license for the subscription. They could have stayed on the perpetual license or they could have stopped paying their perpetual Business Care Plan. I have a feeling all resellers were involved in some degree in advising customers what to do. Also, Sage has yet to discontinue the perpetual license, and Sage has the right to change pricing as often as they like. I am no lawyer, but I don't believe there are grounds for a lawsuit. I completely understand everyone's point, and I agree with all of you that none of this feels right not does it seem like good business. To make matters worse, we (resellers) are getting dragged through the mud simply because many customers think we are Sage. And because of that, I absolutely sympathize with all of you. It sucks.

They can get away with it @PhilMcIntosh cause no one has challenged them yet or challenged and won yet. @BrianKelly 100% spot on.

It was my understanding that Sage raised the price of a perpetual license and thus maintenance where it made business sense to go subscription plus they decided not to enhance that product. If you wanted to stay current and have enhancements, then subscription made sense. Subscription isn't bad...it moves you to OpEx instead of CapEx. If you're looking at a competitor, I think Sage and SAP is the only ones that offers a perpetual licenses, the only difference being that to SAP it's just a payment method, not a product differentiation or penalty. With Sage, enhancing one product more seems more like a penalty.

Make that ""are the only ones""...I need to flog my proofreader again!

@BobTobey - agreed, but Sage isn't really ""enhancing"" Sage 100Cloud. They are putting hooks in to link with 3rd party products, but you actually have to pay for the real 3rd party products if you actually want to use them. And for some of our larger clients, that have many modules and many users, Sage 100Cloud is a lot more expensive than their perpetual product renewal. Even if they increase the price of the perpetual...

A couple years ago Sage sold 100c with Premium (upgrade from Standard) directly to one of our customers... who has PR, before 2018 (oops #1). We were not consulted until the deal was done and the customer wanted help upgrading to v2016. They were also sold on the Sage version of SQL, even though their hosting provider uses shared servers (oops #2). They later had to buy the SQL licenses at a higher cost (which they were NOT happy with). I have exactly 0% confidence that Sage adequately clarified and that the customer understood what they were giving up by switching to subscription.

@KevinMoyes - that's what scares me most about Sage contacting our clients directly. The telephone sales folks truly don't know what they're selling - they've just been given a script, and an Excel Sheet with pricing and truly have no clue about Platforms. Or modules. So - I'm sure you are absolutely right - there was no qualification/clarification - their job is just to convert clients to Sage 100Cloud. Without knowing consequences.

@ThereseLogeais I'm sure you didn't imagine there would be over 50 comments on this post!

I just got the same email @SueBennett did

No, I did not @JohnHoyt!

In Sage's defense, they are trying. How could they pass up that unsolicited email offer ""Do you want names of thousands of Sage software companies?

It would not surprise me if the Sage partner / customer database was hacked / stolen, then sold...