I do agree with your analysis of what normally happens in these situations, but let me elaborate our experience:

1. We did pay the Sage reseller (who, by the way, was www.netatwork.com) to do a needs analysis to see if, in fact, their product met our needs. In addition, we choose two other products to evaluate as well - so we were not focused on just this particular software.

2. We actually liked our old system, however, it was end-of-life'd and support was no longer available, so we had to find a new system.

3. I wasnt involved in this process initally, so not sure if this was done.

4. Here is where we may disagree. As a vendor, don't you want to make absolutely sure your reseller partners are living up to your expectations? If I am the vendor and I hear my reseller is not providing the best service or solution to a client, I would reconsider having them as a partner.

5. This is accurate, however, wouldn't it make more sense to have the "implementation team" part of the sales process, since they are going to know the intricacies (or as Mark put it in his article "gotchas") of the program?

6. I would guess the cost of a "Conference Room Pilot", for most small businesses, is cost- prohibitive. We did pay Net@Work for the needs analysis for Mas-500.

My point with all of this is two-fold. First, I think we may have been oversold, as some of my competitors are using Mas-200 and it seems to work well. Second, what happens when a company, like mine, feels they have done their due dilligence in choosing a product to meet their accounting and/or inventory managment needs, but find out after the fact that it does not?

Stephanie Bice
Digital Warehouse USA Inc.
http://www.digitalwarehouse.com