Epicor has named Sam Montana to head its worldwide channel, a move that comes as reports are coming in that Epicor would start growing its channel again. Montana, who has worked at Epicor for 12 years, has the title VP worldwide solutions, according to his Linkedin page.  The company announcement said he has been running the worldwide systems engineers operation. The announcement of Montana's new responsibility was made at Focus, a reseller event whose existence I think Epicor has only briefly acknowledged to the press (and which isn't mentioned on the Web site anywhere easy to find). The change in direction seems logical given that Epicor has said that its newest product, Epicor 9, puts it back in the financial software business. For the last few years, it has been heavily oriented towards manufacturing. Epicor channel efforts are always interesting since its CEO George Klaus spends a lot of time emphatically telling analysts and investors that the company is totally direct sales (which it isn't). Klaus most recently delivered this message in October in discussing Epic's third quarter results. He told analysts direct sales is one area that differentiates Epicor from other ERP vendors. Read more...

Microsoft has hired SalesWorks, a firm that provides consulting in areas such as marketing, sales and business strategy, to help tune up its top resellers. SalesWorks, based in Vancouver, B.C., is headed by George Brown, who was once the head of the American operations of the Aston Group, a Denmark-based reseller that was purchased by Tectura. Read more...