Selling software subscriptions requires two things: You have to collect your money regularly, and you have to be able to accurately verify licenses regularly. Sage is apparently capable of neither.
(1) Customer switched to Sage100murky in Jan 2017. In Jan 2018, customer gets an email saying ""we are about to withdraw this years payment of $5200 from the account you gave us when you signed up"". Early February, customer gets his bank statement for January and sees nothing to Sage. Customer calls Sage and is told ""Don't worry, we'll take care of it."" Next contact from Sage is in November 2018, saying that the subscription is past due and if they don't receive $14,350 within a week their software will be turned off. Many emails and phone calls later, customer is reinstated after paying the original price, and having the renewal date changed to November, but with no promise that the price won't jump $9k again next November. So they ended up getting 10 months free, but I don't think that really pays for the frakking aggravation.
(2) Customer with the Sage Intelligence all-in subscription asks me to make some report changes. Report Manager tells me Sage Intelligence can only run in Viewer mode. Check Sage web site, it say Report Manager License = 2. License Manager on their system says 0. ""Perform Registration"" process says it succeeded but does not change the problem. Sage support phone tree tells you multiple times about the online options for faster service...if only that actually worked I wouldn't be having to call!! Oh yeah, and the there's the ""would you like us to call you back or would you just like to call back later?"" brand of ""customer service"".
Feel free to print this up as a handout for the Sage panelists at MOTM.