Sage 100

Sage ERP MAS 90 Online Pre-Release Guide #mas90online

A few things I found interesting - some new - some not: 1. Upgrades have to be done by the partner and by downloading the data and then uploading. This means Sage doesn't upgrade the customer automatically -- and the customer still had the expense of having a partner (or themselves) doing the upgrade. This sort of baffles me but I guess at least the hosting saves some complexity. 2. Crystal Reports have to all be designed offline (I think this may have more to do with licensing) 3. No credit card processing 4. No SageCRM integration 5. Apparently tech support is additional/optional (maintenance is mandatory - this is phone that I'm referring to) -- I found it odd that Sage would let the phone portion be optional. 6. Gary can chime in but this seems like mostly a solution for 5 and under sized MAS 90 deals that only need framework modules and no customizations. Over 5 I think it's cheaper and there is greater flexibility to talk with @GaryFeldman

We all have this sensitive relationship with Sage where we rely upon them for software, we trust in them for support, and we are baffled by the decisions they make. We are now in the not so enviable position of competition with them. Although we have tried on numerous occaisions to collaborate with Sage, they have most recently kept us at arms length and probably look at us in a competitive instead of a collaborative role. We submitted a proposal to be an endorsed solution 4 years ago, offered to provide insights into how we work when we learned their intention to provide the service and offered again at Insights. I have to balance how much information to promulgate on the deficiencies of their offering and understand the balance between scalability and tailoring the solution to the needs of the customer. However, some decisions are mind boggling: - No OUTBOUND e-mail (limiting paperless office) - If you own licenses, you still need to subscribe to new licenses to use their service - The price for additional named users (users above concurrent users) is twice that of ours - No third party solutions as of this time - I'm not sure if they are allowing custom office or not - No visual integrator (or custom integrations of any kind) - No legacy (3.x) modules - Shall I continue??? Sage is using Remote Desktops which tend to be much more confusing to an end user than a published application where the application runs just as if it was installed locally. When a reseller reaches our top level (3 hosted customers) we will create a custom branded web portal at no charge (or it can be purchased at any time). At 4 users we tend to become more cost effective with a 5 user Small Business Bundle than a subscription. We currently are aware of 2 leasing partners who will bundle our service and the licesnses and implementation into a single lease payment. This means the reseller gets the margin up front, the client owns the license and the cost is lower after the lease term for the customer with the ability to migrate in house or to another provider if we do not provide excellent service. A reseller will make more money after 4 years on the service (compared to the small commission we pay and the maintenance renewal) on the Sage program. That is a long time to wait for a larger organization which has to compensate its salesperson. And, the customer is paying more too. I could go on for days...

My take on this MAS90 Online is that they're copying what they've been able to make work on the Accpac side. I don't get the feeling that they have desires on more than small numbers of users (let's say under 5). The only way I really have reconciled it is to figure that Sage wants to avoid technical issues and having to customize implementations for each user. And @GaryFeldman to be realistic with Sage- have they had anyone in a position for more than a few years who would be able to negotiate? Even with Extended Solutions Sage didn't seem to know what their policy was/wasn't.

Did anybody noticed there isn't even a mention of MRP as a NOT SUPPORTED module? Is that there way of publicly admitting its deader than dead? The lack of Custom office makes no sense. Maybe its the concern you could run scripts and break out of the 'box' and compromise security. They should have created a customizer light that lets you add UDF's and modify screens as that's all within the app. Tell's me this is nothing more than a marketing 'slap job' and there is little to no financial investment in doing this. They felt they had to say they had a 'cloud solution' and be 'cool.' Even SBE is more attractive than this...

Oh and BTW If no Partner ID is received by Sage at the time the customer signs up, a Reseller of Record will be assigned to the customer by Sage.

Forget that we have supported ALL of the ""unsupported"" modules in the past...you get up to 5 companies. ""If customers require more than the five companies included in their subscription fees, they will be able to purchase additional companies at $50* per company/database. In addition to the unlimited size permitted for Sage ERP MAS 90 Online company databases, and the one gigabyte of personal storage space, customers can purchase additional file storage at $50* per gigabyte per month. This file storage can be used for personal files, documents, images, or any other files that the customer chooses. From within the Sage ERP MAS 90 Online application, customers will always have the option to store their files on a local hard drive."" We ADVISE customers to make a Y## company file each year before their year end period processing or payroll YE (sometimes they make a P## file seperate from the Y## file). A MAS DB tends to be <1GB and we provde 30GB in our standard offering. @Wayne is 100% correct in that Jamie came from ACCPAC and basically copied their model. 80% of ther custmoers have <5 users and most 3 or less. They can have that market and we will be glad to serve everyone else with a more flexible, more MAS oriented offering.

@MarkChinsky Doesn't look like MRP was mentioned in the MAS 200 SQL 4.45 pre-release guide either. Don't know if that was intentional or if they'll do a quiet discontinuation (much like they did with the original SQL).

MRP is not business framework so it will NOT be included in the SQL product. Right now we have someone on MAS 200 SQL who wants to use SMI but it's not available yet for SQL. We asked about version 4.50 and SMI is not available for that version either. We have not received a clear cut answer on WHEN it will be available. Right now F9 is not compatible with SQL, neither is FRx, neither is SMI. There is NO outside financial reporter for SQL right now -- be aware!

@DawnAnastasi It makes sense that MRP isn't going sql and isn't going hosted, but Job cost, payroll and WO were specifically mentioned as NOT available for MAS90 Live. They didn't even mention MRP...