The team here @ Sage read your articles with interest, a customer wiki is a great idea and something we will look into. We do have a community forum on the website and hope to grow and expand that, so a wiki may come in there. We launch our Beta Version 2 in February to include some application updates, including the invoicing templates you mentioned and some of the features mentioned in other review and will keep you informed.

Michael

Great posts, insightful and useful. Comments in progress.

Martyn

Reading your review and conclusions, I’d guess Sage are there or thereabouts on this. The decision to use Line50 as a base to keep “the profession” on board is right IMHO. They are also correct to go for a hybrid as this will help them roll out. And the free billing “on ramp” service is correct. I do think, though, they are too worried about cannibalisation of their core. This will start to happen, and accelerate, so maybe they should kick the process off themselves and take control.

But, here’s a wild card…. I look at my 17 year old son and think “what would you do if you were starting a micro business”.

Joe uses Facebook, MSN and txt messaging to collaborate and communicate. His iPod, memory stick and mobile ‘phone are his local information stores and he uses the school server (and my home server) to store assignments and access info he needs to “work”. Oh, and he wants a netbook because his laptop is “too big”. He “lives” in the cloud. I have no doubt that his older buddies at Uni are there as well.

These are the people who will start the micro businesses and staff the professional practices in the next 4-5 years. Has Sage addressed these people with SageLive? Are they even thinking along these lines? I don’t think so.

But… I think the fact Sage are throwing punches in this space is “a good thing” and a validation of the on demand model. It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.