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What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

  • 1.  What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 07:13
    I genuinely think I am missing a benefit of SPC that justifies what appears to be a price increase for customers who purchase or migrate.

    The price ( see partner hub ) for SPC is higher and is not tiered based on volume and does not include Sage support.

    This price also doesn’t include hosting.

    I believe Sage suggests their secret sauce is the “provisioning portal “. Spoiler: Customers won’t care as this ( whatever functionality it may offer ) is table stakes.

    Does anyone have customers who just blindly buy Sage migrations without doing a price comparison? I don’t.

    What have I overlooked?

    ---------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ---------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 08:52
    Sage Partner Cloud:



    Sage 100Cloud




    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
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  • 3.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 09:19

    Hopefully, most of the certified consultants have tossed off the "I work as a salesperson for Sage" hat many years ago.

    So how do we suggest that the customer go with a higher-priced subscription that also has fewer benefits ( no support from Sage )?

    I can't imagine any of my customers failing to ask what the price they pay now is vs the price they would pay on SPC.  Is the hope that Sage consultants will take on the task of hosting themselves and cut out the traditional hosting middle person? Really? Do people really think it is that simple to just sign up for a 5-10 user site on Azure and these servers configure and maintain themselves?

    I keep hearing "but tier".

    Are we so desperate to earn tier that we are going to risk losing OUR recurring revenue source if a customer becomes unhappy? 

    I also keep hearing "It makes the customer sticky" and "they can't leave". Which, frankly, are the two biggest benefits that I can think of -- and they are all consultant benefits.

    Where's the benefit of this offer to the customer? 

    I'm sure in some specific situations where you have a 3 user GLAPAR who insists that they want YOU to set them up on Azure ( and nobody else ) this SPC model works.  


    Are we to believe that fixed-fee servicing the myriad of issues - printing, lost passwords, backups, security, adding new applications, not being able to use some ISVs - is going to make for a profitable hosting business for the typical partner?  Do you REALLY think you can do these cheaper than any of the dozens of the experienced hosting companies who've done this for years?

    I doubt we can even sell this as a "we will be your MSP and upgrade every year on March 1 when a new release comes out". There are too many "we don't care" ISV integrations in the wild for Sage to get control of them and herd them all to the "be ready within x days of the official Sage release". As they say - money talks... and some of these ISVs are throwing off $$ and are not going to be "kicked off" if they don't comply.

    I also keep hearing about the benefits of the provisioning portal. Again, not a customer benefit. Why should the customer care how long we take to configure Sage? It's all "behind the scenes" stuff. Unless the provisioning portal is suddenly going to clean up long-standing bugs that make the SO and PO and IM sometimes inaccurate, clear up Negative Tiers on their own, and introduce reporting that doesn't look straight out of 1993.... ( Spoiler: It won't ).


    What am I missing?​

    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
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  • 4.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 10:01
    I'm not sure there's much benefit to the consultant either.   Ask a MSP how easy and affordable it is to be in this space.  It's a line of work I am not interested in.  A entirely different skill set is required from an ERP consultant or a programmer. Also, there are issues of insurance and other costs.
    ​​

    ------------------------------
    Doug Higgs
    Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
    (312) 315-0960
    Assistant to the Traveling Secretary
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 10:12

    Wayne – You're not missing a single thing.  Only, that Consultants have this fantastic (insert sarcastic voice here) chance to be an MSP.  Which most don't have the IT experience with, plus it's difficult to learn all of the nuances of an MSP unless you live in their world 100% of the time.  I'm still just amazed that Sage thinks we, as ERP Consultants, can navigate the IT issues that are going to arise.  Not to mention the "I lost my password", "I can't login", "I need to have a new user added".  Unless you have a full time person navigating all of those phone calls, all you'll do is end up with unhappy clients and most likely a fairly serious dent in your income stream.

     

    My opinion is that Sage needs to leave the Hosting with the myriad of experienced folks out there who have been hosting Sage 100 for a while, rather than attempting to turn their ERP Consultants into IT Experts in order to make Sage 100 be a Cloud product.

     

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    Bennett/Porter & Associates, Inc.

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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 10:38
    After the call earlier in the week it is becoming clear that Sage is catering to the big partners, who want to wrap up a big all-in-one-full-service quote to customers, with hosting included. 
    This program is not practical for small partner / consultant firms, unless you want to link up with a service provider and pray they are competent.
    Sage is selling this to Partners, not customers.  Cost pricing, not value pricing.

    ------------------------------
    Kevin Moyes
    Technical Systems Analyst
    Munjal White Consulting Co.
    Toronto ON
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 16:54
    I am relieved to know I'm not the only one not "getting" this. I put my puzzlement in two buckets.

    1) After nearly a year of Covid-pressured incentives to move to cloud there are many Sage 100 customers who have not only because they haven't figured out how to do it. Many Sage 100 customers had already moved to the cloud before 2020, so the ones now left are surely mainly ones on the "Laggard" end of the adoption curve; I doubt many are just waiting for a "unified Sage solution." So, that leaves those who haven't yet adopted Sage 100; I suspect this is not an overwhelming poo

    2) More important, I do not understand the ways the SPC is significantly different from cloud hosting options that many of us have been using from firms like I-BN or GoToMyERP. I do hope we will eventually see some significant comparison pieces from @Bob Tobey or ​@Robert Eppele to help us understand. Both of these offerings, and many others, enable partners to offer a turnkey offer for all but the Sage license. In my experience, breaking out the Sage license has not been a deal beaker.

    So, to my thinking, the SPC offering is a higher risk without any clear benefit to either partner or customer. I would love to learn why I might be wrong with this.​

    ------------------------------
    Jerry Norman
    VP, 90 Minds
    Smartbridge Partners
    512.419.1444 x112
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-08-2021 17:01
    The cynical side of me thinks of it like Sage trying to convince partners, desperate for tier credit, into selling customers some snake oil.

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    Kevin Moyes
    Technical Systems Analyst
    Munjal White Consulting Co.
    Toronto ON
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

    Posted 01-14-2021 11:40

    Thanks, 90Minds.

    I have a ton of detail I can share with you individually if you're interested.  But for this post, I'll keep it simple.

    As you might think, this is near and dear to us and I'd like to share with you what we've been thinking.

    I am certain by now you've drilled down on the pros and cons of this new offering based on your collective and individual experience with Sage and hosting.

     
    Regarding the technology being used for Sage's offering.  

    We all can agree there are only a handful of ways to technically provide desktop hosting, the computing environment, operating systems, and remote connections.
      
    Is this better than IBN or gotomyerp? No. Just a different flavor of the technology stack.

    An onboarding portal or provision sequence isn't magic.

     

    Why Sage is doing this now?  Well, they started a while ago actually.

    Do you remember in 2019 they announced that they want to, "Become a great SaaS company?" 
    Sage must move their entire desktop license base and reclassify that revenue as SAAS and figure out a way how to report desktop licenses as "saas". Or get customers on a different platform (eventually).

    Why is Sage offering the hosting service this way?

    1. They have learned over the years never to do hosting again. 
    2. Sage is extraordinarily risk-averse.
    3. They finally figured out how complicated "just hosting" really is and furthermore, the ability to do fully managed services exceptionally well as so few do.
    4. Deflecting their risk is good and in their best interest.  
    5. The public money markets reward companies who are saas and
    6. They have more visibility and control over the customers.

         

        Will this impact you? In our opinion, yes.

        Even though you will have someone "provisioning and managing the server"... what about everything else you will be responsible for? 

        Are you ready to be a fully managed service provider? I have a brief checklist if you'd really like to see what it may take. 

        Just message me and I'll share that with you.

         

        Sage's past results do not guarantee future performance.
        Sage is certainly on a better tack than with the previous attempts.  But then again, they are not providing the service either - they are just the broker.

        Parting opinions and thoughts, I have a lot. 
        If you're interested please message or email me separately.
        See you in the clouds



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        Robert Eppele
        GoToMyERP, LLC
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        Original Message


      1. 10.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

        Posted 01-09-2021 09:04
        Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights on what may be happening here with this program.

        ---------------------------------
        Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
        ---------------------------------





      2. 11.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

        Posted 01-18-2021 09:02
        The prices listed in the sheet do not include basic Hosting?  I thought that was the whole point.  Combine cost of the software with the "basic" cost of infrastructure in one subscription for the client to make it more of a SAAS offering.  Of course, there would be add-ons for more than the basics that would be passed on by the MSP.   Our company is an MSP and can fully provision clients in Azure when keeping clients on their existing subscription as a separate IAAS offering.  Sage has not shown to us the benefit of getting on board with their approach.  If the price grid does not include hosting, it removes the reason we were even looking at their program.  With hosting included, the prices quoted provide a cost benefit to the client versus keeping the software and infrastructure subscriptions separate.

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        alan niergarth
        Velosio LLC
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      3. 12.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

        Posted 01-18-2021 11:43
        Edited by Wayne Schulz 01-18-2021 12:07
        Not only does the price not include hosting - nothing likely changes about the billing.

        I think Sage would like to change and bill through the partner but I doubt they have the resources.

        So,

        -Sage bills the customer the license ( which is a little higher than what the customer was paying and doesn’t include any support ).
        -VAR bills the Azure and MSP type work ( upgrades, support ).
        -ISV likely bills the customer for any integrations ( if the integration is supported on Azure environment ). I know some will bill through the VAR but many won’t.

        To the customer’s view - what really changes? How is their life better than using any other experienced host?

        The incentive I see is the VAR earns a spiff for selling the customer on an Azure hosted platform.

        Maybe in phase 2 Sage gets key ISV’s to upload an install template so a very vanilla customer can buy through a marketplace.

        Maybe by phase 3 Sage is able to control the Azure environment by virtue of their provisioning portal and not easily accommodate any non-price list ISVs?

        If this test goes well maybe by Phase 4 enough people are on Azure and the companies using that platform have Sage IDs and Sage can further monetize the Sage ID use.

        I doubt this happens because as the program stands it is aimed at far too narrow a niche( likely <= 5 user sites who have no RDP or formal IT ) and supposes that only Sage will be run on Azure. So these niche customers only sorts want to go to the cloud ( ERP only ).

        And sage is trying to move this through a channel ( mostly BPAC ) of resellers who already are offering or white labeling some type of hosting.

        PS - Did I mention at the last webinar when they demoed the backup that when asked they said the only way to restore was the entire VM. Let that sink in and imagine the number of times restoring just sy0ctl has saved a customer.







        ---------------------------------
        Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
        ---------------------------------



        Original Message


      4. 13.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

        Posted 01-20-2021 14:55
        Edited by Bob Tobey 01-20-2021 15:13
        There's an ole adage follow the money!  All Sage did was chose Azure as their IaaS partner ignoring those of us who have been in the channel and loyal to Sage for years.  They avoid any and all liability.  Azure avoids any and all liability so then it falls on the Sage Partner or the company that Sage chose to be their ad hoc MSP (name escapes me) and I'd have to look at their service agreement and service level agreement to truly understand.  

        When problems arise AND THEY WILL, you can't have enough people on your staff.  One or two full time employees won't cut it and if you're going to try that, have a role playing exercise where 5 to 250 customers yell at you 24 hours a day just to see what your staff is made of.  Then, create a scenario that doesn't work until you figure it out after attempting 3 or 10 times while 5 to 250 customers yell at you and see what they're made of.  One thing I learned when major problems arise is that in the customer's mind, my mother and father were never married (let that sink in for a second)!

        When has bigger ever been better?  Is there a need to remind everyone about problems with Microsoft Office releases?  I always remind myself of what I always heard when I was selling against IBM..."nobody ever got fired by making an IBM decision!"  IBM's marketing department made that up.  Maybe you didn't get fired, but bigger still isn't better and to ignore the support and company benefits derived from a smaller vendor hurts your company.

        Regarding the ever popular Provisioning Portal, installing a basic Sage instance isn't that big of a deal but there are nuances that experienced Sage clouds have learned over the years and we've written routines to enhance the user experience.  Plus, if you screw the install up, backing it out never seems to work...you need a clean server to make sure it's correct.  I wonder how Azure will deal with that.  How does Azure deal with adding multiple terminal servers to an instance?  They'll probably do what a lot of inexperience ERP clouds do and that's just add as much memory as they can and hope performance improves.

        Sage has tried to get in the cloud business before and failed miserably.  The first time was 2012.  Robert Eppele will tell you that he got leads from Sage just like I did back then because Sage sucked at it.  And they're not even trying this time!!!  All they've done is delegated the effort and responsibility to you.

        This is getting a little long and my father taught me that when you're throwing dirt all you're doing is losing ground so I'll end with this.  Most of the previous comments to this post have alluded to the fact that HOSTING AIN'T EASY.  Even a basic Sage 100 Standard instance can be a problem because you're dealing with software and end users.  When you're an MSP, part of your job is protecting end users from themselves!  Johnny Gets a Computer For the First Time Scene | Cobra Kai (2019) - YouTube

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        Bob Tobey
        I-Business Network, Cloud Channel Manager
        I-Business Network, LLC
        Marietta GA
        678-627-0646 x231
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        Original Message


      5. 14.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

        Posted 01-21-2021 12:18
        SPOT ON!

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        alan niergarth
        Velosio LLC
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        Original Message


      6. 15.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

        Posted 01-22-2021 23:51
        Edited by Gary Feldman 01-22-2021 23:58
        Actually the first time State of the Art/Sage "tried to go into the hosting" business was in 2000.  In 1999 3 groups pitched to Sage and two were allowed to host.  The were I-BN and IBM.

        We spoke at Visions in Palm Springs (I think that was what it was called).  We both got equal time to speak.   IBM talked about their great hardware deals that were leased and could either be in their data center and they also had a host on premise offering.  In their data center they talked about how they backed up databases every 20 minutes.   We got up and talked about our knowledge of the software and what the benefits of hosting were to the partner.  Because they had bragged about their backups, we talked about our service level agreement and how we had an "overnight" window which was reserved for backups when nobody was using the files.   Needless to say the 5 customers seeded on the IBM platform by SOA did not last long and most partners came up to us to talk.   Of course, little guys like us didn't get any seed customers from SOA.

        We have been through multiple iterations of this.  Every time I applaud it as it brings more attention to the cloud.   As Wayne points out large publishers want control so they can, well control the environment and keep their costs low.  As these programs come out we consistently tell partners, go there for vanilla and low price and come to us when you want flexibility and value.  Most of us don't represent QuickBooks for a reason.  For some it is a good model (and for hosting companies too), but we chose a target market with a certain profile and focus on what we are good at.

        I do believe Dave Butler and his team cared about the customer as I believe that Sage wants their customers to do well so they can continue to pay subscription fees, just as we want our monthly hosting fee and you want your consulting dollars and subscription commissions.  I think the big difference is we report to our own consciences, family, employees, partners and God as opposed to shareholders, stock market valuations, etc.  No offense to the really good people at Sage NA, but from where I sit the partner community and its values have not been something top of mind for Sage in a while and definitely not in this roll out.

        Sage Partner Cloud should be looked at as just another choice of hardware in a Sage Preferred Provider program.  The difference being that with this hardware choice you are taking on the responsibility of monitoring and managing that hardware.  Hosting companies charge more than Amazon or Azure because we provide value for our service.  If you go the Sage route, make sure you factor the value of your time, service and responsiveness to after hour calls because Google updated its browser or Flash is no longer supported, or that windows update just broke something (not Sage 100) on your cloud into your price.  Those were incidents just in January, where we did nothing, and really cannot bill for on a T&M basis (I see Jerry and John shuttering at the thought)!  

        Bob is right that "hosting ain't easy."  Most 90 Minders are who we are and created our own lifestyle businesses.  Although being a business advisor is not a 9-5 job, being a cloud service provider is a 24x7 service where whatever goes wrong is always the provider's fault type job.  I-BN specifically built our service level agreement on response time for communication and reserved overnight hours for maintenance and system down to preserve the work/life balance of our team.  We choose to have clients that respect our values so we can respect them in return.  Ed Kless recommends firing bad customers, I am not sure whether you can fire a customer in a SPC environment when you take on this additional responsibility.

        For some partners with systems administration capabilities, sufficient staff and a good ticketing system like Sage CRM, SPC may be a great fit.  Just go in without the cup of cool-aid and with eyes wide open.

        ------------------------------
        Gary Feldman
        President
        I-Business Network, LLC
        Marietta GA
        6786270646 x224
        http://www.i-bn.com/
        ------------------------------

        Original Message


      7. 16.  RE: What Am I Missing About Sage Partner Cloud?

        Posted 01-24-2021 20:45

        I really appreciate the wide range of seasoned cloud & hosting experts who tried to answer this very open-ended question. 90 Minds is such a great place for learning like this.

        I conclude from all this that Sage doesn't have any technical secret sauce in their offering.
        - Azure is anything particularly special that isn't available with some other technical cores.
        - Compared to Sage, any partner can get the equivalent, or better, level of cloud functionality from existing sources such as GoToMyERP or I-BN, and with these vendors the partner outsources a significant level of system support, reliability, and business risk that Sage is not offering.
        - Some partners have chosen to implement their own cloud-technology offering for customers to more or less match Bob Eppele's and Gary Feldman's offerings. Sage is essentially offering a core product for others to build out like this, too. 

        These are necessary weeds for partners to understand if we want to help our customers "go cloud." However once this is confirmed, we must focus on what the customer wants. The customer doesn't give a flyin' flip about the details in my 3 bullets. The customer just wants the utility of a cloud base. Always on. Always available wherever users are. Invisible maintenance. Reliable access and behavior with predictable price. 
         
        Actually, customers go even further. Once we put their Sage 100 system into the cloud, they want the method to be invisible. Open the app from their device and they work on it, behaving much like they experience in a vendor's app or from a web-based app like Google Docs. 

        We partners need to focus on delivering that package. One price. Keep the details to ourselves. Make sure the underlying cloud services meet those "invisibility" needs. As a result, most of us are better off to buy these from our 90 Minds member and resell those, invisibly, to our customers packaged up in our "XWX90MinderSage 100 Cloud" product. This is what the economic-buyer customer wants to see. 



        ------------------------------
        Jerry Norman
        VP, 90 Minds
        Smartbridge Partners
        512.419.1444 x112
        ------------------------------

        Original Message


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