Sage 50 2009 draws a razzie

John Stokdyks’ review of Sage50 2009 is interesting for this one observation:

For its share of the desktop accounting market and the features it packs, Sage 50 is a software behemoth and each annual release is a big event. But is anyone else beginning to get the feeling that the real thrills – and opportunities for growth – are taking place elsewhere in the market, with accounting applications that will make life easier, and not more complex, for small businesses and start-ups?

Bingo – or as one correspondent said: “There’s the money shot.”

It is in the nature of software development that after a while, the vendor is adding features that few people need. We all for example know about the 80% of Microsoft Office that less than 10% use. In the case of business applications, the figures are even worse. By this stage, I’m betting close to 5%. I defy anyone to show me a case where they can honestly say they are leveraging the whole functionality that products of this kind offer.

The problem is the vendor is caught in a bind. Its DNA tells it to keep piling features into the product otherwise people won’t continue to pony up the maintenance fees on which it relies. In reality – as those who have commented on John’s post note – old bugs and problems that have become a running sore remained untouched.That’s a miserable position to be in.

Which raises the question – what would I do? I would shutter any further feature development and concentrate on solving the problems people continue to report. That’s step one in the ‘let’s keep ‘em sticky’ strategy. Step two is to sort out the interface. It sucks and has done for a long time. This mean doing something that Sage has an awful track record on – listening to customers. I know what it says but when you look hard, Sage is only trying to mine for new features it can sell. That’s not the same thing at all. Third, I’d seed a startup in this space to compete against the new boys on the block. I’d give it a different name and I sure as heck would NOT brand it Sage. At least not for now. If Sage doesn’t do these three things then over time I guarantee it is going to have its lunch eaten and then some. It has the distribution and support infrastructure in place. It doesn’t have the coders.

Will Sage do any of these things? I very much doubt it. The company is little more than a financial services machine thaqt believes it can continue to grow by scooping up acquisitions. The reality is it is building an ever larger legacy code base that it will never properly integrate yet that’s where almost all its R&D ends up being spent. There simply is no bandwidth for solving customer problems. And that is what will kill it.

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Tagged as: Microsoft, Microsoft Office, SAAS, Sage, Small business