Sage News and Discussion

Uh, yeah ok. Whatever you say. But didn't the NFP and CRM folks essentially say the same thing right before their divisions were sold? Didn't someone from Sage give a denial at Summit that they'd be selling NFP due to it being profitable and why would they sell it? I think it might even have been Pascal...

The VP and GM of SLX put in writing vociferous statements about Sage's commitment and how profitable the CRM stuff was. The letter stepped just up to the line, without going over it -- it never explicitly said, ""Sage is not selling SLX."" That VP claimed that he could get Pascal on the phone to a customer to say the same thing, although I don't think that ever happened. This article is the same. I think Sage screwed the pooch in the way it handled its non-core so far. Ordinarily, ""non-core"" means, ""we'll unload it when we find the right price"". And yet, Sage vigorously denied that interpretation. I guess they were trying to keep new sales from tanking, but they kept SLX swinging in the wind so long that sales tanked anyway. So, now when they put out something like this do they really think people will believe them? Yes, the CRE products were rebranded, but that rebranding happened long before UK decided to carve off the non-core. Yes, CRE lives under mid-market, but I suspect that there are more admin reasons for that than there were for Scottsdale. I was struck by the fact that the remote access demo at Sage centered on CRE products, but that was simply a technology demo; full implementation goes beyond that. My guess? I think UK misjudged the US housing market. I have no doubt that its immolation in 2008 made CRE sales untenable. So last year around this time they decided that they'd cut and run. Now the building trades are doing pretty well. and they're rethinking it. I suspect CRE will be quietly moved off non-core later this year.

Nice analysis. I wouldn't be surprised if Sage only trots out Non-core labeling if there is another situation which would require it. I don't recall if they highlighted it at their recent earnings call. My big takeaway is that UK is driving strategy vs Sage NA. And if that's true it means nobody in NA could tell us what may or may not be sold.

You've pointed out the signs that UK is driving, and not always telling NA what it means to do. I do agree with that. Wilzoch's (SLX) performance in person was pretty convincing. I don't know if he's a good enough actor to do it while knowing the real story. Until roughly early Dec when buyers started visiting. I'll put another layer on your analysis. I think that, at its center, this was a political battle between Dublin and Scottsdale. Even though Wilzoch once ran CRM out of Dublin, I think he lost the fight last Spring and didn't know it. Location, Location. And of course, if Newcastle is calling the shots, Dublin makes more sense from a control perspective than Scottsdale. There was a high level of (unavoidable in my estimation) frustration in Scottsdale with Irvine. And Sage CRM NA ops had recently been moved to Scottsdale, which they weren't happy about. I think that combination resulted in lots of sharp knives aimed at Scottsdale. Anyway, what really rankles me is the deception. Yet another little bit of data to the channel reinforcing its attitude of ""we hear what you're saying, but we don't really believe you when you tell us it's in our best interests."" Sad to see it go. Selling off SLX and ACT to a CRM-related buyer is likely to be a good thing for those products. I remain a bit skeptical about Sage's current CRM strategy in the longer term, but time will tell.

I think it is probably a good thing for the CRM products and Non Profit. These products were step-children within Sage and will now become the center of attention in their new organizations. They will probably have R&D budgets and considered strategic initiatives. I think I would trade places versus being stuck in a harvest mode strategy.

I think we need to see what the new owners do with the products. Is Saleslogix really going to get a lot of attention from what is essentially an email marketing company? Or were they ""forced"" to take both if they wanted to do the deal? Dunno.

I might be missing something, but my take on this is that SLX has much more upside on this than ACT!. The low end contact managers has a lot of players, with not much $$. SLX actually does compete well against sf and Sugar now that it has a good cloud offering. I think SP was either genuinely interested both, or ""forced"" to take ACT! The real CRM action is in the market space above ACT! and below enterprise. We won't know what the plans are for the combined operation until after the sale closes EOQ. SP is pretty much email marketing only. They are wedged between cheaper Constant Contact and more complete offerings like Hubspot. The CRM market has changed dramatically in the past 5 years, and has completely different dynamics than ERP. This divorce is a good thing.