Sage News and Discussion

Some interesting tidbits for Sage 100: - Starting with Sage 100 2013 you no longer store CC info in Sage. That means all customers with existing CC data will have that uploaded to Sage Exchange. This also applies to customers without any integration to a CC processor (manually keying CC). PC Charge goes away with Sage 100 2013 My question is what duty do we have to INFORM THE CUSTOMER that their existing CC info goes away and is also uploaded outside their company. Obviously not an issue with existing payments customers (theirs is already uploaded) but Sage's reply was ""well we will have an acknowledgement during the install"". Problem with the acknowledgement during the install is when we as partners are doing the upgrade or install and customer never sees it. I believe (same as any EULA changes) that we could be liable if there were some type of Sage Vault breach and we did not inform the customer their data was being uploaded. - Sage claims there is no concerted effort to make FRX incompatible with Sage 100 2013. So it should still work. However I can sense that at some point they would like this integration to go away (My comment to them: We need at least 9 months notice). - Talked to Lori Maloof and a bunch of Sage people about EULA. They claim there is no ""read only"" mode for expired maintenance being implemented though during the chat they did reference an internal project ""timebomb"" which is keyed to some type of expiration. So they are definitely looking at this though for some reason unable to accomplish it technically. Perhaps they want to have the EULA changed for a few years so they can say ""well we have always had this provision but did not enforce"". - Sage CRM in the cloud integration to Sage 100 may be arriving early 2013. This would be great for anyone wanting to setup basic CRM but not wanting to learn the SQL and debugging of a standalone Sage CRM. This still seems like sort of a ""soft date"" for expected rollout. I would not be surprised if we didn't hear anything more until next Summit. - Jim, Robert an dI sat in the Sage 100 2013 advance look session on Sunday. I was struck by the LACK of ""oohs and aahs"". There are some nice things like 20 character AP invoice numbers, ability to use GMAIL for paperless office emails, SageCRM licenses to access Sage 100 no longer use a ""real"" license, etc. However there was a real lack of much enthusiasm. And the crowd here were the hard core Sage 100 folks who work with it every day. - Also sat in on the Sage Intelligence Reporter class. This is still a complex product but the Alchemex teem is like ""The Terminator"" -- they keep taking body shots and getting back up slightly stronger. Don't count them out -- yet the product still seems more complex than the average customer or partner will want to deal with. I think they are in this for the long haul. BizNet is always an option and one partner here said early on he weighed creating a report in BizNet vs SI and the BizNet took 4 hours and SI extimated 20+.

I think the idea is that customers will have relief knowing their customers credit card data is not on their site, so there is less liability to them and more liability on some other organization that is large enough to protect it. Similar to not keeping $100,000 in cash onsite, but rather storing it in a bank.

Agreed. However shouldn't we at least inform the customer? What happens if Sage Vault suffers a breach and customer is surprised that their data had been uploaded.

Yes the customer should definitely know.

Yes the customer should know. The purge and transfer will add significant time to the conversion. They said between 1/2 to 1 second per card number. You should purge expired cards before the upgrade. Sage employees didn't realize there was already a utility to do this.

Most of the stuff they are adding that customers requested are largely features requested 5-10 years ago. I remember fielding a question about ap invoice length for a customer who dealt with Coca Cola in 1999. The gmail thing was basically because they upgraded the version of Chillkat they were using.

What would be a real ""ooh and aah"" feature they could have added -- multi-bin?

Maybe.

The problem is so many features that they do add were really requested a very long time ago. Most of the stuff on the ideas site was requested before there was an ideas site.

I heard today that BizNet had two sessions cancelled by Sage - perhaps they don't like the competition with Sage Intelligence?

Hmmmmm....

@RobertWood I thought they said 30 seconds per card? Or was it 5?

Was it? Youre probably right.

@ThereseLogais just confirmed 30s per record under the best possible conditions. In less than perfect conditions, who knows?

@ThereseLogeais I spoke to Biznet and they confirmed that Sage canceled two session and gave them their money back and you are right about the 30 s per card no.

Thanks @DianeRuth - sorry I didn't make it to dinner tonight!

There weren't a lot of oohs and aahs because there wasn't a lot to ooh and aah about. Longer AP invoice number, inactive customer/vendor number (only if there is NO PO Header activity), ability to see when AP check cleared in BR, CRM for mulitple companies, etc. Very light weight for a full number upgrade. I suspose there was a lot of work going into the MSI migration changes and the payment solutions. NO PO history tables, not a lot of non Sage employee idea web site implementations. Business Alerts are offiicially dead in the next couple of months and MAS 500 was given a five year end of life time span. A lot of work being done in mobile Apps so something should be coming Sage 100's way sometime in near future.

I didn't realize it was announced that MAS 500 will only be supported/developed 5 more years. I would think that would have generated some noise!

IDK. check with your co worker about whether she is picking up X3????

My impression from all this is that Sage 100 partners should take a hard look at messing with X3 in a couple years. And, all the action on Sage 100 going forward will be in BI and Connected Services.

Remember when Sage suggested MAS90 partners pick up 500?

Yep. Thankfully my internal issues prevented us from initially acting on that urge. As time moved on, it became clear that MAS 500 was not a ""clean"" product and likely never would. I also noticed that the whole thing was built in VB, a 90's technology that was not where app development is going. What I was trying to say here, though, is that in a couple years we'll have a better idea of whether X3 is working out in the effort of standardizing and simplifying, although it will probably take more like 3-5 to become clear. I'm just saying that sometime in the foreseeable future, 100 will become a ""Businessworks"" product, and we'll have to move to something else, Sage of non-Sage. Also, I wasn't shocked at the announcement of 500's pending demise. There were plenty of little signs dropped over the past 2 years.

They didn't exactly announce that 500 was going away in 5 years. They announced that 500 has at least 5 years left. Rough estimate is 2,000 active 500 customers (ie on maintenance). I did hear they found a tool to convert the vb6 screens to .NET.

Where did you hear the customer count?

@RobertWood any idea what the number is for Sage 100 customers on maintenance?

500 is roughly 8% of 100 customers, so 24,000.

@WayneSchulz Jack's BBQ is all I'll say.

Thanks @RobertWood! I'm sure you're rockin' 'em at the ""7 Deadly Sins"" session...

@Wayne, the actual count on 500 users is 1,960 per Linda Cade. She gave that in a session Sunday afternoon. There are 240 on X-3 in the US but unknown world wide. The tech issue with 500 is that the UI is intermingled with the business logic so putting a new front end on it doesn't fix the business rule layer ( think BOI).

Thanks - Sage gave 3,800 worldwide in press briefings. They also gave a partner count for US and worldwide. As I recall they were looking to have 100 in US within 5 years and they had something like 30 now (I'd have to check notes to be certain). What's a little unnerving to me -- as it may be to some of you -- is how clearly I can remember the day that MAS 500 was on the pedestal that X3 now is. Sage trumpeted 500 as the ""Second coming"" including urging MAS90 partners to ""get into 500 if they want a future"" .............

I remember being wooed to add 500. I went to a meeting about it and remember coming away thinking no, I don't think so...

Knew one company in the middle of a 500 conversion who complained and they were offer a free switch to X-3

Nothing ""free"" in Sage's world, but this is a nice way to start the process. Maybe everyone will be offiered a ""free"" version (excluding maintenance of course) just as is done with CRM........

The Sage X3 var number I'd heard was 250 U.S. expecting to grow to 750. Sage X3 sales currently 85% Sage and 15% channel. Expectation is to switch this ratio to 79% channel, 11% Sage in less than 2 years. I don't have or recall any install base U.S. numbers for X3. Good points about the hype of 500 (does anyone else remember when it was called Acutity?) The issue with 500 hype, imho, is that it was a brand new product and was being developed duirng the tail-end of the SOTA ownership before the change over to Sage ownership and that may have contributed to less than, dare I say, focused development and testing. X3 has been around since 1999 in non-US markets so while it's new to the U.S. markets, it had a track record before being luanched here.

Moira I think those VAR # might be global and not strictly the USA

You know @WayneSchulz I don't recall them making a distinction US/Europe/Global - I guess that's global then.

Here's what I have from Joe Langner's briefing. I'm not 100% I copied the right user counts for the typical deal size (80 sounds high). Sage channel NA - (All) - 1,300 to 1,400 (Joe's organization) Average X3 deal size $70-$120k --- users of 80 seats Deal sizes will go down - move into core mid-market (25-30 3,800 users (global) 250 partners (global) USA: 30 certified 1/2 are producing measurable results Pipeline of 30 partners they are recruiting - 1/2 from Sage and 1/2 from other competitors Selling one solution a year doesn't make you a partner - it makes you a problem. In 5 years - 500 partners worldwide - a few over 100 in NA Cross Sell is good for process manufacturers Discontinuation for ERP 500 is 5 years and the other products are not as firm. Not ready to communicate those plans. Have not stopped selling the product yet.

Interesting to note that they had Christophe Letellier (sp) over and he is the CEO of Sage ERP X3

Yes I did see Chrstophe at the X3 presentation too. Those number's bug me a bit though - 30 certified X3 partners out of 250, how are those partners then? With all the hype about certifications for Sage 100, 300 last year that kinda pisses me off about X3 partners.

Part of the discussion is about the $100k+ that partners spend to be X3 certified. I agree with Sage - a partner who sells one deal a year is not a partner - they're a problem. I think they've accurately stated their goal (actively selling partners).