"All R&D now reports centrally into this role which we have never done in the past," he said this week. Previously, R&D was run by general managers and individual products, which sounds like the company acquired products and left most of the structure of those operations in place. Palsule said the company would not disclose the percent of budget spent on R&D but termed the spending levels "competitive." He continued that centralization "brings scale and leverage. It’s easier creating a common experience." With the new position, Palsule keeps his previous responsibility of managing product strategy which he said "allows me to influence road maps." Sage will be demonstrating progress on cloud and mobile products at its Summit conference next month. Palsule declined to give an advance view of those. "Cloud and mobility will have a huge presence in everything we show and talk about," he said. Sage has also centralized support, which had also previously been managed along product lines.