That was a step back from Certusi's prior day's statement that "Sage is fine tuning its rollout plans." Sage planned to move from a flat rate to payroll based on the number of employees paid. According to some resellers, the move threatened the era of good will that stemmed from reseller reaction to new CEO Steve Kelly at this year's Summit conference. Under the plan that was disclosed on September 14, "the cheapest tier is $1,000 for up to 15 employees. At 500+ employees a company goes from $500 annual maintenance to $5,000," said one VAR.  Another reseller described Sage's fine tuning this way: "Sage is going back to the drawing board on payroll and not sure they are even rolling it out in December now." Because of the timing, on VAR said enduser companies would pretty much be stuck with the pricing this tie, but they would likely defect next year if the proposal holds.