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Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

  • 1.  Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-13-2020 14:55
    During today's all-hands Sage announced Sage Partner Cloud. While specifics are scant, it appears this is an Azure offering with some level of automated setup or authentication. Sage will offer tier credit for Sage 100 or 300 users referred to Sage Partner Cloud.

    Lot's of questions remain about this offering - not the least of which is whether partners are going to refer their own customers to another partner who offers Partner Cloud or whether all the partners ( essentially BPAC at this stage ) are expected to ramp up an Azure hosting business.

    It's difficult to say what purpose this serves ( versus existing hosting options ) aside from possibly allowing Sage to deem Sage 100 and 300 as "pure SaaS" if they are on the Azure offering.


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    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
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  • 2.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-13-2020 14:59
    I think you nailed it, @Wayne Schulz - this is something from the Marketing dept because we don't get enough flipping questions about the "cloud product" from our Sage 100Cloud clients now.  I had another one just last week - someone who gets my newsletters where I have discussed this repeatedly AND who has attended at least one Sage Summit AND who was never on perpetual.​

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    Beth Bowers
    Mom to Samson, Peanut, ChiChi, Canton, Cagney and Daisy (NO Oxford comma - shriek!)
    Beth Bowers
    269-445-1625
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  • 3.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-13-2020 15:42
    And what if Sage drops it due to too few customers signing up for it.  I've been around long enough to see that happen more than once with Sage's menu.

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    Rhonda McNamara
    Customer Success Manager
    Stewart Technologies, Inc.
    rsm@stewarttechnologies.com
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  • 4.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-13-2020 15:54
    I'm not sure of the specifics of this Partner Cloud except that it looks like since it's hosted on Azure that perhaps there's going to be a way to have each partner specifically create a hosting platform.

    This doesn't answer the question of why the partners who already have hosting options would want to opt for this Sage Partner Cloud except for as an additional offering. 

    I don't understand this but I also haven't seen the details yet. If Sage were to promote Partner Cloud as a spot where the partner "automatically" did the annual upgrade and the overall experience was similar to SaaS then I think that would be one selling point. The problem is that the underlying readiness of the core product - in this case, Sage 100 - as well as enhancements often takes months after the official release date. I don't see having a Partner Cloud doing anything to materially change the customer experience with respect to release dates and ability to quickly upgrade to new versions.

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    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
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  • 5.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-13-2020 18:13
    You mean "when Sage drops it", right?

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    Phil McIntosh
    President
    Friendly Systems, Inc.
    Asheville NC
    678.273.4010 ext 5
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  • 6.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 08:37
    Sage has largely ( though not entirely ) driven partners into certified consultant status. This means Sage is left largely dealing with BPAC on these initiatives.

    Most of the large partners already have hosting offerings. Many are white labels of other offerings. Some are hosted themselves or by entities they’ve acquired.

    Which leaves the question of how many prospects are left for this type of offering.

    I’m sure - like most starry eyed initiatives - there will be some low hanging fruit attracted to shiny advertising.

    I also predict it will be left to the partner or consultant to explain the rationale behind this new offer.

    The problem tends to be after that initial “easy sale”. How long and how much attention gets paid this offering?

    I don’t know the answer but it seems keyed on which executive is in control and what the current priorities are.




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    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
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  • 7.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 10:28

    As a hosting provider (we started hosting Sage 100 in 2012), my fear is that while Sage is rolling hosting out to make Sage 100 appear to be a Cloud offering,  it will indeed (as Wayne has said) fall to the resellers/consultants to make the new hosted offering be successful at their client sites.  We struggled for a long time with remote printing with our hosted servers before we finally found a solution (TS Print that I think everyone should use for clients that are hosting Sage 100) that seems to have fixed all of our remote printing issues.  We've also discovered other problems along the way given that Sage 100 doesn't have the architecture to be a true Cloud product.  Unfortunately, I don't think Sage cares about the problems we'll have as - in the words of Dave Butler - trying to put "lipstick on a pig" and make it appear that Sage 100 is indeed a Cloud product.  We have our own IT division in our company with 8 people dedicated to everything IT, including hosting and Managed Service Agreements for our clients.  I don't really see Azure as being a threat to our hosting services, but I agree that there might indeed be some initial interest from clients who are "wowed" with the new offering of Sage being hosted with Azure.  We'll see.  But I also expect to see quite a few issues for resellers/clients in attempting to support it and solve some of the problems we've encountered over the last 8 years.

     

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    Bennett/Porter & Associates, Inc.

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  • 8.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 11:20
    On the plus side, Windows Server Datacenter has been added to the official support list in the SPM.

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    Phil McIntosh
    President
    Friendly Systems, Inc.
    Asheville NC
    678.273.4010 ext 5
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  • 9.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 11:43
    Sage should follow their pattern: find an existing solution, sign a contract and slap a Sage label on it. That way, when Sage loses interest, they just peel off the label, and the customers don't lose the support infrastructure.

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    Kevin Moyes
    Technical Systems Analyst
    Munjal White Consulting Co.
    Toronto ON
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  • 10.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 14:01
    Nice catch, and that is actually very helpful.

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    Jeff Fiddelman
    Exeplex, LLC
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  • 11.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 14:59
    Also:
    Microsoft SQL Server 2019 with Cumulative Update 4 and earlier, Standard or Enterprise

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    Lee Graham
    Friendly Systems, Inc.
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  • 12.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 11:46

    Now more than ever I believe the role of the VAR is to serve as an advisor and key member of the customer's accounting/CFO team. There are going to be some customers who don't see the value in that and will wander off to DIY land ( grumbling along the way ) but the real money is to be made on the customers who we can serve in a more expanded capacity. 

    With the expansion of WFH, the key challenge is staying in the loop with the customer's teams and not being on the outside and hearing about decisions after-the-fact when it's too late to help.

    How many Sage 100 customers in the services business ( which seems like it will be wave 1 of the migration push ) realize that the Sage Intacct average annual fee is about $20,000? And that's before any other integrations which can be expensive too.

    My WAG is that the push to get customers onto Sage Partner Cloud is to make them sticky. I was talking to one hosting partner a few weeks back and that was one of their observations. Very few hosting customers find it easy to leave so it makes the customer extra sticky. It's tougher to ROR to another partner when your prior partner has all your hosting in the cloud. 



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    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
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  • 13.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 12:05
    @Wayne Schulz  "How many Sage 100 customers in the services business ( which seems like it will be wave 1 of the migration push ) realize that the Sage Intacct average annual fee is about $20,000? And that's before any other integrations which can be expensive too." ​

    I wonder if Sage is going to offer "parity pricing" to entice Sage 100 customers to migrate to Intacct.  In year three or four the TCO triples.

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    Doug Higgs
    Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
    (312) 315-0960
    Assistant to the Traveling Secretary
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  • 14.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-14-2020 12:20
    Another note on the $20K average annual price tag.  The $20K includes hosting and version upgrades, so the TCO isn't as expensive as it looks on the surface.  The upgrade revenue goes in Sage's pocket and not the VAR's.  There's money to be made on the conversion to Intacct but if I have to depend on one off data exports from Sage 100 I will be out of business.

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    Doug Higgs
    Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
    (312) 315-0960
    Assistant to the Traveling Secretary
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  • 15.  RE: Sage announces Sage Partner Cloud

    Posted 10-19-2020 15:05
      |   view attached
    I spotted this a couple days ago on a Microsoft Partner Insider Call.  It used to be that in order to be promoted by Microsoft as an Indirect Provider of Azure hosting services to the Microsoft Partner Channel, the provider of the Azure services had to have fairly strong technical chops themselves.  SaaSplaza for instance is 100% dedicated to the Azure cloud and has been for nearly a decade.  By contrast, Sage is just learning how to spell Azure in the last year.   It would appear that the bar has officially been lowered.  If Sage partners value their tier attainment more so than a clear conscience of knowing their clients systems are in good hands, then go forth.  Otherwise, there are much better options.


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    Jeff Mack
    President and CEO
    ICS Support
    Redmond WA
    425-820-6120
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