Sage News and Discussion

So much for a selective ERP X3 channel - this came into my 90 Minds email address. I suspect it's some type of mass email campaign.

Very interesting. Gary, my business partner, was talking with a rep from Sage (our RAM's boss or what every you call your primary sales contact with Sage these days). He stated that they had several new partners who have been signed up that are very likely too small to carry the product and invest the resources required. I would think they would doing a little demographic work first.

The real problem is that Sage has not made it easy for small to medium size resellers to take on X3. Counting my certified Microsoft engineer, we have 6 people in our consulting group who deal with Sage (of the 10 in our group). We started on the training a year ago, but it is almost impossible when we are working on Sage 100 and JobOps customers full time. The training is not Anytime, so it requires 5 hours per day on-line with an instructor for several days in a row. Also if you miss the cycle of classes, you may have to wait for 3 months or more to get back on track. If it were Anytime, we could schedule it on weekends and after 5. Additionally the instructors are simply reading the training guide and it seems more like a demo than a class. The sales class was not helpful at all, so it makes it necessary to depend on Sage's presale people, which is what I think they want. By the way, the initial reseller fee is supposed to be used to find prospects for us, and is not dependent on being certified. That never happened. Finally, there continue to be many issues with the software and holes that are difficult to explain. Code and some on-screen words in French are the least of the issues. Until we can determine how to get certified and spend more time with the package, we will be teaming up with SWK on any prospects that come our way.

I think the X3 exclusivity ship sailed a while back. They are drowning in new business.

Based upon rumors at Summit, the X3 dealers who are out there and selling have more than they can say grace over. If you want to put your resources into learning the product (be ready for a big investment in dollars and time), lots of resellers are looking for consulting help.

That may be the case on growth, but like when Microsoft favored AX, alot is probably coming at the expense of other products. I guarantee that if you called sage and said, 'hi, I'm interested in MAS90, or Peachtree', you'd get, 'sure, but your really want our flagship, X3, let me put you in touch with somebody' Microsoft does this with NAV, GP & SL. Microsoft did this because they like shiny toys and to them AX was shinier or and more techy than the others (forget the fact that it's way more complex to implement than the others). Sage will do the same, but not because X3 is 'shiny', but because (for now) Mr. Fucus is French and has so much pride that his French solution is moving to the head of the pack. Plus, after they carpet bomb the channel like they did with MAS500, suddenly, after investing tens of thousands in dollars and lost time, and a few potential lawsuits after your first few implementation disasters and tons of write downs, you'll find that so many people were signed up, there are very few leads to go around. Then just as Sage settles in with X3 as the lead, Mr. Fucus will be sacked, and a new guy with a new 'favored son' will show up and you will all be left holding you 'bleep' in your hand like the poor souls that trusted sage on MAS500 It's not like X3 is such a magic bullet vs. the other 20 or so higher end ERP solutions in the same cost and implementation complexity range.

For those of you who carry it, is there something about X3 that has prospects eating out of your hand vs. the other real competition like AX, Epicor, Infor etc? Outside of process manufacturers, a niche that requires alot of industry & manufacturing expertise and references, what's so killer?

I agree with Mark's comparison to MAS 500 however the one big difference this time around is that Sage is now focused globally and I don't think North America has a lot of leeway in what they chose as their prized solution. While North America has some local discretionary spending I do not think they are truly setting the direction for the company. Yes they can paint an RV and hit the road for a few weeks to shake customer hands. No, they can't make a North America only ERP acquisition without UK's blessing. Big change from the early years of Sage ownership. Much less NA control imho. I wholeheartedly agree that the burst of X3 leads may be coming at the expense of other Sage products -- either by Sage referring inbound leads to X3 or by Sage marketing heavily into the X3 niche to the detriment of other market areas. This is , as Mark pointed out, almost exactly what Sage did with MAS 500.

I agree with Wayne's assessment. Also - let's not discount the migration opportunities from other Sage products to X3. Right now, the migrations are going to 100, 300 and X3 but you can bet they will be pushing over time to send them to X3.

@PeterWolf , I don't necessarily disagree with you that new leads will go first through an X3 filter first. It's just hope they don't try to make every lead qualifu as an X3 deal. As you put it, will Sage try to shove a square peg into a round hole? If so, that is a recipe for disaster. I also agree with your analogy with Acuity (500). Early in the products life, it was very limited and immature. A number of the resellers who signed up early to baths; some even failed because they were too far out on the leading edge. The question on new technology is when is a tool mature enough to move forward with. If you wait until everything is as smooth as a mature product like 100, then the ship will have sailed. However, you don't want to be on the Titanic's maiden voyage. The question; when is it mature enough to meet 80 % of the needs of the client and be stable and make the client reasonably happy? If anyone's crystal ball is clearer than mine, please let me know. My biggest concern with Sage NA right now is the lack of direction on mid-market solutions. They have two horizontal products in 100 and 300. Are they going to continue to move the products? Is one going to thrive while the other withers on the vine? Do we all need to become 300 VAR's? Do 300 VAR's need to be 100 VAR's? The mid-market picture in their overall design is really fuzzy for me. I do believe that eventually, there will be conversion tools for PFW, Pro, 500, 100, and 300 to X3 so that when a customer is ready to move, the tools exist. I also believe that the development time for those tools is not short. Talking with the director of the team building the tools, they are working on PFW and Pro now. 500 is on the list but not much beyond the drawing board. I don't think 100 or 300 are even on the list at this time. Therefore, there isn't going to be a big push anytime in the future. I agree with @WayneSchulz that the overall Sage vision behind SageOne and X3 ERP is driven at the global level (in the UK or France) and that the NA operations are riding in the back of the bandwagon. They are not in the driver seat.

@ShawnSlavin - I didn't mean to suggest that Sage would shove square pegs in round holes. What I was alluding to - and it's a guess only - is that Sage will continue to flesh out X3 and give it more of a universal mid-market benefit. If they do this, then future conversions will be easier to send to X3.

@PeterWolf , unfortunately, I don't share your sense of comfort that Sage won't try to sell X3 into situations that it does not fit. Regarding the erosion of the Mid-Market, both from above by X3 and below by SageOne, I heartily agree. However, I think it is going to be a long while before the two cover enough of the space to make both 100 and 300 irrelevant. That does not mean that the products won't experience a further erosion of their respective market positions.