Unlike some new kids on the block, Sage Software has to be responsible to their existing client base as well as their new customers’ desires for the latest and greatest. With a large installed base comes great responsibility.   DSD is happy to be in the same situation.    We are contacted every week by vendors who want us to represent their "Latest and Greatest" products.  Some of them are rolling out something they call "Software as a Service" and make all sorts of claims about why that makes them superior to what Sage Software offers. 

We have tried some other vendor’s products but we have found that the "new and better" stuff always has growing pains.   We are being recruited by other vendors every week. We get into details that most people who are not VARs can't fathom.   Remember that most ERP shoppers only do this once in a great while . . . if they do it right.   The other vendors products often are missing what they call "small stuff"  but we call vital tools that the new guys don't think needs to be there.   Stuff like merging vendor’s records or re assigning customer records to new salespersons and even leaving out one step billing.   If they also sell direct, that should be a RED FLAG to any VAR as our experience is not so good with being treated as a "partner" by organizations with a direct sales force.  If the vendor isn’t treating their VARs well, imagine how the customer/client gets treated.    We have seen it up close and it’s not a pretty sight. 

When our work is compared to how email systems are sold and operated, that tells me that the comments come from people who don't really understand why we exist in the ERP marketplace. Our "raison d’être" (reason for being) isn’t the software; it's the Service as a Service that we have been providing for over 25 years. We have to select our vendors based on their ability to provide the tools we need to do our job or our customers/clients will find themselves stuck with no help from us.  It doesn't matter where the data is stored or who the IT people are!  It always comes down to understanding the client's business processes and business environment. We need to walk in their shoes and not step on their toes.   That is quite the trick.    Even people on "America's Got Talent" don't try that!   A really great performance is being done over at the Sage Accpac ERP group. 

Sage Accpac ERP version 6.X product is being released in a few months and will have a new "Google friendly" interface. In a year or two, all the modules will also be switched over and also allow for concurrent availability of the current look and feel for their existing users. Sage  CRM. which is fully integrated into Sage Accpac and now with MAS 90/200.   So, these users can have their cake and eat it, too.    Maybe this looks like Sage is late to the party, but there is a ton of work to make this happen and I for one don't see too many others doing it better.   This is a race that the tortoise wins over the rabbit.    Our clients who are accountants understand this better than anyone.

 Sage offers us a great community of people who all put the client first.  Technology is changing faster and faster but Service as a Service (SaaS) is what we are about at DSD of GA.