In a keynote that was filled with announcements about new direction, one word stood out unexplained in the speech delivered by Pascal Houillon, CEO of Sage North America. That was the word "direct" as Houillon said at Sage's Summit conference that his company needs to have more "direct involvement" with end users. So what does "direct" mean?

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Outside of the announcement of the plan to eventually stop promoting product brands, the biggest nugget in Pascal Houillon's keynote at the Sage Summit conference today involved the use of the word "direct." Houillon, asked about the role of Sage and it partners, said that "There will be more direct involvement with Sage and its customers than there has been in the past." There was no followup on what this means. The only elaboration was that Houillon said there would be "opportunity for both Sage and its partners."

 

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Sage intends to drop its product brand names over the next two years in order to establish the Sage name in North America. That announcement was made this week at the  Sage Summit conference by Pascal Houillon, CEO in Sage North America, in his first major speech before the company's channel.

 

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MAS resellers are grappling with a change in Sage support policies that has produced at least a mini furor. Sage has decided not to provide unlimited support calls to MAS resellers and instead will give them 10 free incidents a year each. For Accpac and Pro VARs, the change was a big yawn, since they have been used to the same terms for several years. Tom Miller, the Sage VP of channel management, said, "it's an education issue." If nothing else, there's a sense that Sage didn't handle the issue well with some irritation that it was announced just before the Summit conference, just underway at the Gaylord Hotel at National Harbor in Maryland, just downstream from Washington D.C. Read more...