Blackbaud spent much of its conference call about the results for the year ended December 31 preparing Wall Street and investors for the impact of its upcoming NXT product line. Raiser's Edge NXT and Financial Edge NXT have been sold since December and will be delivered in the second half. Those buying the desktop versions are buying the right to upgrade to the cloud-based NXT lines.

Sage North America has hired John Pullen as EVP of sales. Pullen is focused on the company's Mid-Market Business Solutions operations.  The Mid-Market division has been led by Joe Langner as EVP of Mid-Market Solutions, but that was a broader range of responsibilities than just sales. This is a new position. A spokesperson said, "He will work with the Sage Demand and Lead Generation Marketing teams to boost new customer acquisition efforts."

Sage CEO Steve Kelley has started a blog about mobile technology. It's less important what the blog's content is on the Sage Group site at www.sage.com than the fact the top executive of this company has a blog. Long-time chief executive Paul Walker and Kelley's predecessor, Guy Berruyer, never tried anything like this that offers such a connection between Sage's customers and channel. Kelley's first posting offers several points, nothing terribly surprising.