Sage Bolsters CRM Cloud But Key Channel Executive Departs
Talk about mixed news. Sage North America this month unveiled Managed Cloud Servers and staging environments for CRM channel partners and customers. But the launch could be overshadowed by continued executive changes at the CRM specialist.
Talk about mixed news. Sage North America this month unveiled Managed Cloud Servers and staging environments for CRM channel partners and customers. But the launch could be overshadowed by continued executive changes at the CRM specialist. Indeed, the latest departure involves Executive VP of Sales Paul Johnson leaving the company, The VAR Guy (TalkinCloud's sister site) reported earlier today.
Let's start with the SaaS and cloud strategy. Sage North America this month launched two cloud services for Sage SalesLogix Cloud customers and partners:
- Managed Cloud Servers: Using this platform, customers or Sage CRM Solutions Business Partners extend CRM functionality by enabling add-on, ISV, and custom applications in the cloud, Sage asserts.
- Staging Environments: This platform lets companies test upgrades, customizations and new applications in a secure, parallel environment, and review and release functionality to users at the time that suits their business, Sage asserts.
By introducing more cloud offerings, Sage hopes to counter NetSuite, Salesforce.com, and the online version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Global Reach, North America Challenges
There's a bigger story here: On a global basis, Sage's annual revenues recently beat financial analyst expectations. But financial pundits noted that Sage's North American business continues to show weakness amid heightened SaaS competition.
No doubt, Sage has been taking steps to shake up the company — which has triggered some executive turnover. In addition to Paul Johnson's departure:
- Sage North America CEO Sue Swenson intends to retire in mid-2011.
- Sage Business Solutions president Jodi Uecker-Rust, a Microsoft Dynamics and Great Plains veteran, left earlier this year.
Looking ahead, part of Sage North America's turnaround strategy hinges on Sage SalesLogix Cloud. Introduced in early 2010, the Sage SalesLogix Cloud is built upon the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). TalkinCloud is watching to see if the Sage cloud platform attracts cloud integrators and channel partners.
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