90 Minds Community

Rest assured that these top partner defections are very bad news for Sage. Solomon, with ambitions to become one of NetSuite's biggest channel partners, said he has existing and prospective customers ""chomping at the bit"" to use NetSuite. Those include SMBs and divisions of bigger companies -- some of whom are using on-premises applications and want to shift to cloud computing. http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/300075614/solution-provider-network-to-resell-netsuite-cloud-applications.htm

.... he has existing and prospective customers ""chomping at the bit"" to use NetSuite.

Sage has dug their own grave. I know past regimes have been bad but the current regime has really ushered customers and partners alike out the door with the Sage ""organic growth"" policies at the expense of customers and partners. In the past, I think we all felt that we could just wait around the 2.5 - 3.5 years for new management teams. This time it has been a full court assault on our livelihoods. My two cents.

I don't think we are too far from another reorg. I would not be surprised if parts of Sage NA were sold either. My guess is that the reason you haven't seen more sales is that the price isn't right or there are not enough buyers.

What nut would buy a company selling technology that has had no serious commitment to R&D for over seven years?

I might have some loose change in my seat cushion. Hang on a sec ... let me check.

These are actually cash cows. I think if you were to remove Sage's monster overhead -- and you peeled off Sage 100 -- you'd pretty easily be making money. All of Sage's non-core (aka anything except X3) basically exist to fund development, sales and marketing efforts for Sage ERP X3. If you don't believe me login to MySageSell and view the recent updates and activity.

The problem for Sage is if X3 and Sage One don't meet expectations it's a big problem globally.

When speaking with Tom MIller recently he indicated that NetSuite has a great allure because they create BUZZ in the marketplace, making customers interested in it. Whereas we heard on the Sage VIP call that Sage has a very mature customer base that is falling behind the technology curve. Not creating BUZZ. X3 is not a new technology and although it looks great, it has created no BUZZ.

You only need BUZZ, if your core business is selling software, which is what many of the top resellers do. If your concentration is high quality business and technology consulting (which is what most of us in this group do), then this is not significant. Customers that want to ""be in the cloud"" are the new ""we want to do barcoding"" customers. They don't really know what they are asking for and are not aware of the options available. My first response is to explain what @GaryFeldman does. It's a private cloud and there are many advantages. Customers that simply have decided they want to change to NetSuite rarely would tell us until they have completed the switch. They aren't worth saving, because we obviously didn't have a trust relationship. If they had asked, I would put them in touch with any number of partners we know that resell NetSuite, but also recommend doing a comparative functional analysis. That's consulting, and we do not lose our consulting edge because we didn't take on a cloud solution like NetSuite.

@JohnHoyt - I agree that BUZZ creates software sales, The only problem with your analysis is that we rely upon the publisher to keep our products relevant and publishers rely upon software sales You can rely upon consulting if your practice is not based upon a software product no one is interested in. For most Sage based partners, the runway is long enough before the product is irrelevant, but it makes our practices less valuable and I recommend you save, because selling a traditional practice is not a retirement plan, selling an annuity is.

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