One of my friends is trying to get hold of the API to Sage Line 50. I won’t reveal who it is because there are a number of negotiations underway with suppliers, vendors and customers that are all in the melting pot.
Access to the API is crucial to the business and is of no competitive interest to Sage. It’s not in an area Sage understands. They’ve proven difficult to deal with – nothing new there then – and want my friend to pony up £2,500 for the pleasure. OK – it’s not exactly a huge amount of money but in putting this roadblock up, I believe Sage is behaving in a very short sighted.
Sage has many thousands of disconnected customers who could benefit from being hooked up to my friend’s hub. It solves a business critical issue that removes significant friction from the transaction cycle. Sage would benefit because it’s customers would have an automatic incentive to register product. Which doesn’t always happen. At present, it only has around 167,000 registered Line 50 users and by its own admission, many fall through the net. So my friend’s request is a good thing for everyone.
I have no intention of making this post an online negotiation. Neither am I seeking to shame them into caving in which is a bad idea anyway. But given Sage generated £776.6 million in revenues during FY2005 – £2.5K won’t even register in petty cash. Instead, I’m appealing to Sage’s new found listening ear. I’m saying to Sage this is a great opportunity to demonstrate good citizenship in a world where everyone wants to be connected and where the potential distance between anyone, anywhere is little more than a mouse click. It’s a golden opportunity to break the mould which has, for years, left VSBs/SMBs at a huge financial disadvantage to the large hub players.
My friend has APIs for Sage Instant, Mamut and Access Accounting which is a great start but won’t be enough to develop a mass market. I’m trying to broker conversations with Microsoft Business Solutions and SAP. Conversations are ongoing with Oracle.
I’ve brokered the start of a conversation with CODA though they’re not that easy to deal with either. Unfortunately, the person my friend needs to reach is on vacation. I hope Jeremy Roche, CODA CEO is reading this. Maybe he\d be prepared to give my friend a hearing. My friend is bootstrapping the operation and has got a headline customer signed up – if he can get access to CODA’s API.
This is important to professional accountants because, assuming my friend achieves a reasonable level of traction, then he will be making you and your clients lives significantly easier. He will provide traders with an opportunity to carve out administration cost. If you’re a paid up member of Sage Accountant’s Club how about alerting them to this issue?
Technorati Tags: innovation
