Questions & Answers for the ISTUG AGM

Questions & Answers from the ISTUG Sept 02 Meeting

Who from	Question	Answer
Williams Medical Supplies PLC Lynda Downey Sage Enterprise V2.0	What support does Sage & ISTUG have in place to aid customers changing resellers to make the transition as smooth as possible.	Sage provides a list of available resellers on its web site. If a user wishes to change reseller, we are able to source an alternative for them and arrange introductions. We do ask for feedback on why the user wishes to change resellers so we can follow up on any issues. ISTUG - have a direct link between our web site and the SES web site, and we can advise on reseller track records as we know them.
	What processes are in place to support the customer if the change of reseller involves a relationship breakdown within the terms of the support contract.	From a maintenance point of view if a user wishes to change reseller, they must inform the existing reseller of cancellation in writing within the terms of the contract. Sage will assist any user who is experiencing difficulty and will try to help locate a new reseller.
	If the bulk of the support fee we pay as customers goes directly to Sage, is that transferable should we need to change reseller during a contracted term or do we have to pay Sage twice as well as fees to two resellers.	The bulk of your support fee goes to your reseller, not to Sage. Providing the user cancels with their reseller within the required notice period, the outstanding maintenance monies are refunded to the reseller, the assumption being that this passes to the end user.
Renishaw PLC Graham Little Sage Enterprise	We heard a lot about Linux today, can Sage please position this with respect to their current operating systems, Windows and Unix, in their future strategy?	Sage are now offering their products ported on Linux, but will be continuing to support all the other operating systems we currently port the product to.
ISTUG	We are increasingly concerned about customer upgrades that go wrong, leaving high profile customers unable to operate their business, with the reseller and Sage failing to address these situations with sufficient urgency. Would Sage care to comment on this?.	It would be impossible to comment on this statement in particular, however, if you can cite specific examples we would be more than happy to comment on these individually.
	The recent fall into receivership of Sage reseller Zouq has left at least one customer Devon Hardwoods without a support contract despite having paid for a new support contract with Zouq in July 2002. Do Sage really expect this company to pay for a support contract again?	No – we do not. We have offered to take the support direct while Zouq end-users look to alternative resellers. In the instance of Devon Hardwoods, we believe that they are already talking to another reseller. Should this reseller take on the support we have already confirmed that Sage would provide support FOC up to the renewal date of the contract. We would expect any new reseller to do the same however we could not enforce this.
	The Sage/IBM relationship appears to be concentrating its efforts around the IBM AS400 series servers. What is happening with the RS6000 and AIX - if this widely used and highly capable platform is being dropped - WHY?	The IBM iSeries is a new platform for Sage that represents exciting opportunities in a new market for us. Sage’s commitment to the pSeries (RS6000) remains unchanged and it appears on the supported platform list for Line 500 v5.
	Sage have stated their intent to become totally based upon SQL type databases - can they therefor give a date at which they will no longer support C-ISAM systems	We have announced our intention to cease support for Line 500 over C-ISAM from Ist January 2006 but we reserve the right to review this in the light of changing circumstances.
	Could Sage comment on reseller reaction to the Reseller Accreditation Scheme. When is it likely to start? When can we expect to see some positive results from the process?	The programme is designed to ensure our channel partners have the tools and knowledge to provide high quality customer services. The response from resellers has been very positive and the pilot programme is running in September and October with 7 of the top Line200/500 resellers. Once launched, accreditation will be mandatory for all resellers.