After spending a year (officially) at NetSuite, Fred Studer, has returned to Oracle after being away from that software company since September 2007. He has come back to Oracle as SVP of product development. Studer was chief marketing officer at NetSuite from December 2014 through December 2015 when he was forced out. Before that, he worked at Microsoft from September 2007 through December 2014.

Sage has introduced a Global Accountant Partner Program. The tiered program is part of last fall's new Global Partner Program that is designed to support its software applications. It is available immediately for programs sold worldwide: Sage Impact, Live, One and X3, and will be rolled out for all products in October. Sage said the program gives members free access to a "peer-led community of Accountant Partners with access to the full suite of Sage products."

I quipped that parts of the exhibit floor at Microsoft Envision this week had sounds from coyotes howling. And if you have been to a lot of shows, you know the symptoms of that kind of emptiness—exhibitors talking to each other; pacing, leaning against things. But one that I had not picked up on before was the most prevalent—people in their booths with their hands in their pockets. Microsoft's chief marketing officer Chris Caposella told those in the main arena that more than 6,000 people attended the Convergence replacement.