Antique Roadshow or A Good Sign?

The exploration of what the future holds for the MAS 90 and MAS 200 accounting software products made by Sage Software continues as we take a look at a recent announcement made by Sage's Sales Department.

In an effort to rally the troops and communicate their message, Sage sales recently announced that they would be hitting the road, traveling the states sponsoring get-together sessions with MAS90 and MAS 200 VAR's to talk about the importance of selling the MAS 90 and MAS 200 products and communicating their intent to further develop the links between MAS and other Sage Software products.

From one perspective, this could be a good sign. Sage wants to open lines of communication with it's vendors and lay out some jargon about the MAS products. Communication is always a good thing, and kudos to Sage for taking the time and effort to communicate with their base.

From another perspective, it appears they want to simply give their version of self-help and success stories so as to press on with the sale of new MAS product and largely avoid the topic of their aged technology.

Tell me what you think? Leave a comment.

Is Sage's MAS tour a good sign for the future of MAS90 and MAS200?

Or is the tour simply an antique roadshow?

Don't Lose Your Accounting Data

All seemed quiet on the Sage front. Things have been moving along with somewhat ease as Sage resellers jockey for positioning and seek out new accounting software VAR opportunities with other products. NetSuite continues to court former MAS users and Microsoft recently made note that the sale of Dynamics was strong.

All indications show that the mid-sized business management and accounting software market is alive, well and healthy - even though the former leader, MAS 90 and MAS 200, are not.

At it's own hand Sage has been significantly wounded again. Released today to VARs and next week to MAS 90/200 users. Sage announced that their engineering department found a significant bug in the new version 4.2 release of MAS 90/200. Version 4.2 has been out for about a year almost and is currently on it's 9th service pack release, and today Sage notified resellers that 4.2 has a bug that removes data from the system.

The bug removes good data from the sales invoice history and sales order history among others. Essentially eliminating a businesses ability to accurately analyze their sales data.

I would like to say it is no real big deal, but unfortunately it is a big deal. Since the bug has been out and active for about a year, and it resides in a utility frequently used by all businesses, it is safe to say that a very large percentage of any business that upgraded to the new version of MAS 90 or MAS 200 has inadvertently lost sales history data.

If it wasn't before it now is extremely difficult to recommend businesses upgrade and tell the truth at the same time.

Keep checking back to see how things progress - however my recommendation is that if you are a MAS 90 or MAS 200 VAR or consultant it would be wise to figure out what you will do next, because the future of MAS 90 and MAS 200 is looking increasingly grim.

Sage Software Press Release Confirms Worst

Well, it is official. Yesterday Sage software released a statement indicating that the parent organization, Sage Group, "removed" the top four seats at Sage Software US including the CEO, CFO, CTO and President.

This serves as confirmation that despite Sage Software trying to put on a good face, the ship hit the perverbial iceberg when it tried to update the technology behind MAS90 and failed to a large degree.

Sage also announced they were going to work harder at getting closer to their customer base. This on the heels of their largest reseller / VAR announcing last week that they sold more than double MAS 90/200/500 product than the next closest VAR. Anyone else smell a merger?

You know, it isn't much fun to be right when the news is negative. It would be better to be saying nice things for sure. But in this particular circumstance, the beurocratic whoo-ha of a self centered myopic organization has caught up with its designers and fallen flat as a result.

The jury is still out on whether or not MAS 90 and MAS 200 will be retired as a product. Sage Software already announced that their flagship cash-cow porducts MAS 90 and MAS 200 were being put out to pasture, so it is only a matter of time until what was once the most widely used business management software for the mid-market moves to Florida and buys a condo, and hits the buffets at 3pm for dinner.

Keep track here and we will see if/when MAS90 dies.