The Independent User Group for users of Sage Enterprise Software

By Simon Looker

Over two years ago, IBM announced the ‘Developer Charter’: IBM will not develop applications, we will partner.

- True innovation

- Applications and middleware solutions

- Support for open industry standards

- Value chain influence

- Pull for IBM eServers, storage, middleware, and services

- New customers and new markets

PartnerWorld’ is the umbrella organization which looks after IBM’s relationship with our partners.

The coverage model we operate with our partners is tiered to differentiate investment and deliver benefits by level, as you might expect.

Sage are currently in the ‘green’ segment. There are around 500 or so ISV partners WW in this tier. We are working toward Sage moving into the ‘red’ segment, where they will become one of around 80 partners worldwide in this tier.

- Offerings and support for the entire value chain

- Industry-leading technical support for developers

- e-business market pull

- Scalable, available, safe e-business infrastructure

- Open industry standards

- Global distribution and sales capabilities

- New customers and new markets

The relationship has initially focused on the mid market (company size >100 employees).

As such, we are initially focusing our efforts on the Line500 and SalesLogix product solutions.

Porting to iSeries and Linux both open up new markets for Line500.

For ‘larger’ implementations (more than 50 users ?) we may choose to sell directly through the IBM/Sage sales team. IBM will be acquiring some Line500 ‘capacity’ by way of the announced purchase of PwC Consulting Group. They have a Line500 practice in EMEA, with twelve trained consultants.

Initially the focus is on the UK market (next few months). Very soon we will have a push into broader EMEA.

We very much hope this leads to increased market share and revenue and profits for Sage, which in turn will continue the momentum of the product development and enhancement….’Best of the Best’.

We have had a significant focus on enabling the Line500 solution to run on Linux, tuned for IBM eServer hardware platforms.

Linux is a major growth area in a difficult IT market, and is a major investment area for IBM worldwide. Much more will be said in the Linux presentation which follows next.

iSeries enablement opens up new markets for Sage and brings a new solution offering to the current installed base and new iSeries customers. iSeries has around 700,000 customers worldwide. Again, much more will be said in the iSeries presentation later this morning.

The iSeries enablement brought support for DB2, IBM’s flagship data management solution. Again, this opens up potential new markets for Sage Line500 in the mid market, and brings more choice to the customer. Once gain, much more will be said in the DB2 & Informix presentation later this morning.

Ensuring that we deliver value to all involved is key to the relationship. This includes Sage, IBM, the reseller community and the end user of the solution.

Listed are some of the ways we are doing this.

The sizing guides for Line500 on eServer will be ready in November. They will be distributed to the reseller community at Sage Expo.

For the end user, we intend that all the work the partnership undertakes is focused on delivering more choice with a higher quality of service at a competitive price.

We are already developing plans for how to go to market together in AG and AP, with these mid market offerings.

ASP/eBOD is a key strategic area over the long term.