General Consultant Discussion

Some interesting statistics http://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2014/03/how-many-companies-use-microsoft-dynamics-erp/

You can tell there GP bias however with their trying to push how % increase is more important than real increase

Nice find. Doesn't say if this is companies active on maintenance. My guess is that this is lifetime sold systems and that the number active on maintenance would be less. Interesting info. I'd also be curious if number of companies equates to licenses sold, unique company licenses, number of companies setup in the software (could be multiple per site).

Is Solomon no longer tracked by Microsoft? Odd that they have exactly 0% growth. Dynamics CRM only up 1,000 users in a year?

These are end user companies. CRM has 3 million users on about 40k companies so they have much higher user counts. Also keep in mind Microsoft was 'fire selling' GP (and to a lesser extent, NAV) this year with huge discounts on 3 & 5 user systems. I'd guess these are enduser companies on maintenance but its hard to tell. I too can't imagine SL with 0 sales so my guess is about as many companies who bought SL, dropped maintenance on it.

From somebody I know...You can be darn sure this is the case with ERP 100 & X3. All of your clients are funding all the shiny new features of X3. Must make them feel great: ""I had a ms rep tell me recently off the record that GP and NAV fund AX. So AX is still not that much of a cash cow...."" From An...

The CRM #'s are interesting. The WW market is still growing at 10%-12% annually. For a Customer growth of only 3% to equate to keeping up with existing market share means that the $/new-customer would have to be way above the market average. Since these are WW numbers, is the WW ERP market growth rate really ~5%-8%? That's more than double the rate in NA.

Again, I think alot of the growth is coming from 'fire sale' pricing of GP & NAV for 3 & 5 user systems. For example, a fully functional 3 user system is $5k all in.

OK, but AX is up nearly 6%.

Yes, but % from a smaller base. AX is definitely their lead product in terms of marketing and where inbound leads go. Just like X3. If X3's numbers aren't at least that good, than Sage is in real trouble

ok. I get it now. Thanks for your patience.

I like how this guy puffs ERP X3 -- I'm quite sure in the context that users is a different definition than customers: KEITH FENNER: Sage ERP Africa represents the only three global solutions from Sage Group Sage 300 ERP with over 45,000 customers in over 150 countries, Sage ERP X3, our flagship ERP with over 200,000 users globally and Sage CRM which provides the sales and marketing layer for both ERP's. - See more at: http://www.itwebafrica.com/home-page/talk-from-the-top/591-keith-fenner/232527-interview-with-keith-fenner-vp-for-sales-sage-erp#sthash.31TUYB7X.dpuf http://www.itwebafrica.com/home-page/talk-from-the-top/591-keith-fenner/232527-interview-with-keith-fenner-vp-for-sales-sage-erp

they say 200k users which probably means named users. They probably also have some type of cheap web user that they count. I think the real number is <10,000

customers"" = ""Implementations"". ""users"" are named or concurrent user license count within a customer. I think you're being generous with customer count for X3. I suspect it is between 3k and 4k WW.

Your probably right.

Remember X3 used to be named Adonix. I think they claimed around 2,500 when Sage purchased them. In February 2011 the number was given as 3,000 at a Sage analyst day. http://www.mintjutras.com/sage-x3-launches-in-russia-and-austria-sage-who/ As Mark said - if X3 is not growing rapidly there's an issue within Sage. It's likely that virtually every lead that remotely qualifies is funneled toward X3 to the detriment of other Sage mid-market products.

the December review of Sage for partners claimed the FY13 x-3 new customer business was up nearly double.

Probably correct, but double over what? That's how Accumatica or x-tuple can claim great customer adds. When you are starting with a low base, fast growth statistics sound great.

The presentation was YoY in NA. So, yes, very low base. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's under 50 customers

Someone once said when you don't have much to show you always go with percentage increases.

But the inverse is true if you have a large base, and growth slows: number of sales can sound large. My sense of X3 in NA is that sales are effectively limited by implementation bandwidth. My guess is 2014 installs will be last year's count + ~30%. maybe 50%

Some Dynamics NAV only statistics: Worldwide Customer Count 102000 Maintenance %75.00% Average License Value$42,000.00 Average BREP$6,720.00 Customers under Maint.76500 Annual Value$514,080,000.00

X3 is growing very quickly and I think the pedal is to the metal on this one for 2014 and beyond. I am under an NDA with BPAC so I don't know what specifics I can share. I will say it is hundreds of customers in NA and many of these deals are dozens (and in some cases hundreds) of seats per customer.

@MarkChinsky - Can you explain the Microsoft fascination with AX over NAV? It seems like NAV just keeps growing and growing.

Also - regarding MS CRM - I can only speak anecdotally but many people that I know that have it get a bit frustrated with MS treating it like an Office product and constantly changing around the interface. People don't want to relearn their CRM every year. Also MS has screwed their channel over so people aren't as aggressive about pushing it any more (sound familiar?) so that might create some slowdowns if they aren't careful. I'm shocked that they only added 1000 customers last year. I believe Sage CRM had around 500 adds and Microsoft has much deeper pockets for marketing.

I do not believe this is NDA - from what I can recall the images are from an open session at ITA where even competitors could attend. This information covers a lot of the mobile strategy. Some may be current but changes (such a pricing) might have occurred between the discussion and launch. December 9, 2013 ERP X3: 4,000 customers 60 Countries 204,000 Users 260 Partners https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/ce92d047-92b7-47ea-9db1-1d290821434d/b0a4bd826a00616d6866c6028e32b0b5

X3 better be growing. Other than controllers who used to use 100 or 300, the net new sales I'm sure are pathetic. I guarantee you if a prospect needs more than 3 users and can fog a mirror, Sage will be pushing the lead to an X3 var and will cut any price deal needed to close the deal. That being said, technology goes in waves. X3 had some eye candy etc, but for example, Epicor 10 is on the verge of release and it's just gotten a major boob job and lipo...(sorry ladies :) )

Its the same fascination of X3 or 300 or 100. Microsoft is a technology company, not a marketing or financials company (cough...Sage...cough) and they feel the AX technology is the most cutting edge of the 4 solutions (not that it makes it a better product for their customers). it also means microsoft can go in and act like a real player against Oracle and SAP. Microsoft has always wanted to push into Enterprise apps and there is no love lost between Ellison and Balmer, so this has helped fuel the AX push. Plus realistically, if they are ever going to narrow down these products into one, it's pretty obvious AX is the most futuristic platform. The problem is, after all these years, its still way too complex for the small and lower mid-market segment and is still missing alot of functionality compared with something like Epicor without relying on alot of 3rd parties

@WayneSchulz - Thanks for sharing - I wasn't sure if I could but if you saw it at ITA, it's safe. The new version of X3 being released shortly will have another jump forward in technology. It should be interesting.

Part of the issue running through all this is customer segmentation. salesforce & MS have shifted over the past several years to enterprise targets and upper mid-market. X3 and AX play in the latter. It seems to be the Willie Sutton rule here, because there is a lot of money there as firms entertain the idea that maybe Oracle and SAP aren't necessary for them, so a few migrations result in big $$. As a result lower mid-market gets less attention. We definitely see this in CRM. IMO it's Sage's strategy to use Sage 300 to fill that area as X3 becomes more appropriate for what used to be covered by MAS 500. In the comparison, Sage 100 targets aren't as appealing, so that effort gets less excitement from execs looking to hit bonus targets.

At one point, I would have agreed that Sage 300 would fill the lower end but I'm not so sure any more. I think Sage 300 is experiencing more and faster attrition than Sage 100 and I don't see Sage stepping in to shore it up. It's odd because it is one of their global products...

WRT Sage 300 - maybe because for those partners this Sage treatment feels like deja vu. Remember Accpac was bought by Computer Associates who pretty much (to my recollection) milked the maintenance. Then Sage bought them and for a time Accpac was clearly the anointed leader and now it's not so much. These Accpac/300 partners may be more adept at recognizing the downward trajectory and less likely to want to repeat it. Just a wild guess.

I was an Accpac partner back in the day. I would say the Computer Associates ownership was a very awesome thing. CA left Accpac to their own devices and it was a great time to sell Accpac. The management team was dynamic and somewhat visionary and they fostered a great sense of camaraderie. That's my opinion of that time period.

Accpac/300 is like NAV. Large international install bases, great cash cow, but the technology hope is in X3/AX Maybe its something about 2 character names? :)