* The Sage Group focuses on resellers
You know all sorts of information about The Sage Group even if you don’t realize it. Use Act for customer tracking? DacEasy accounting? Does your accountant use CPASoftware? They all live under the Sage Group umbrella.
Of course, before last week these products were under the Best Software umbrella. But at its third annual partner’s convention, Insight 2005, Sage announced that its Best subsidiary was being rechristened Sage Software.
Sage grew by acquisition (none of the three programs mentioned above were developed by the company) and reliance on resellers. It plans to continue the reseller focus, and meetings at the convention were filled with resellers and other business partners to learn about new and current programs. The resellers wanted to meet other resellers they could partner with to extend their coverage.
The business partners smooth over the rough seams between products to serve growing companies in vertical markets. For sales functions, small companies start with Act, the leading contact manager (which will soon have a Web version). Single-user Act installations give way to networked Act, which gives way to SalesLogix, Sage’s CRM application for small to midsize businesses.
A Sage reseller will sell both Act and SalesLogix, and therefore help with the transition, or will bring in another Sage reseller to help. Most Sage resellers make as much or more money from services, such as customization, as they do from selling software licenses.
Just as Intuit pushes customers from Quicken to QuickBooks, Sage starts the process with DacEasy and moves them up to Peachtree or Accpac. There are no one-click data-conversion tools between all these applications, so Sage’s reseller channel steps in.
The step-up pattern works across a variety of applications and industries. TimeSlips, from Sage subsidiary TimeSlips, for single users and small companies, gives way to TimeSheet Professional for larger corporations. Krista Endsley, general manager of TimeSheet Professional says the company has about 350 law firm customers and has never been sued.
If you’re in the construction, real estate or property management industries, you’re familiar with Timberline Software. Another Sage acquisition, Timberline has new document-management modules and sets the standard for the Universal Desktop initiative. Sage gradually will give all its applications the same look and feel that Timberline has now. This realignment will take time, but should help create a “Sage” look to applications.
All these things are great, but I have a couple of quibbles. Although Sage Chairman Ron Verni talks about cross-platform applications, the new Act Web software runs only on Internet Explorer. Act has been Windows-centric from the beginning, but has any other company introduced a major hosted product upgrade using a browser interface that keeps customers locked into Windows? Isn’t the Web option a way to open the client to a variety of platforms? I’m betting this restriction is forced by Act’s reliance on the Windows .Net framework on the clients – another quibble I have (OK, argument, because .Net always causes me problems). The days of cross-platform speeches but single-platform products are past.
The products under the Sage umbrella sometimes overlap, a consequence of acquisition vs. internal development. But upgrades seem to be stepping on each other, such as Peachtree adding a Construction module that duplicates some of what Timberline offers. Sage says it manages these overlaps, which of course it has to say. But resellers say the company guides customers through the maze, and I believe them. A good reseller will make up for a ton of corporate mistakes, so trust your local supplier. Besides, resellers aren’t restricted to one corporate relationship.
You might need to upgrade out of the Sage family, and your reseller can help. But the Sage family is growing so much you can grow from your garage to a multinational corporation and stay under its umbrella.
Gaskin is a consultant in the Dallas area who helps small and midsize businesses use technology intelligently. He can be reached at readers@gaskin.com.
