UPDATE 5-4-2009: In a highly unusual (and unfair) move Sage today voided all quotes issued for this promotion. There was no advance warning save for a 5 pm email. Worth noting that Sage had AGGRESSIVELY promoted this to their end users both by recommending that their Business Partners offer the deal and also by direct calls out to qualifying MAS 90 and MAS 200 users.  Due to the low cost involve – the pricing was met by numerous inquiries from VARS as to “whether it was right”. Therefore any outstanding quotes by Sage have been voided. We find this practice unfair and unusual.

Sage Here’s a promotion from Sage that expires June 30, 2008 that’s left a good number of resellers scratching their heads and muttering “wow, this seems too good to be true”.

Several people in my 90Minds Consulting group have been talking about this upgrade offer that Sage current has on the table. The offer applies specifically to a class of MAS 90 or MAS 200 users who are referred to as “grandfathered”.

These users purchased MAS 90 or MAS 200 prior to October 1, 2003. During this time Sage was not charging annual maintenance on user licenses so the users have not be subject to any per user license fees.

Start Saving Money On Maintenance In Year Two

The offer is as follows.

Grandfathered users can upgrade to the Sage Extended Enterprise Suite (comprised of MAS 90 or MAS 200 + SageCRM + Sage FAS) for a one time license transfer fee of $500 per user.  Their maintenance for each user will be only $150 per year – which in nearly every instance is a huge savings over what the company would have been paying previously.

Here’s the math as worked out by our 90Minds Consulting Group in an email exchange from late yesterday:

From: 90Minds
Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 4:58 PM
Subject: [sageresellers] New Pricing on Grandfathered accounts for EES?
To: sageresellers@yahoogroups.com

Just got off the phone with our install base salesperson at Sage and she enlightened me on the special promotional maintenance pricing for accounts moving to EES that are in grandfathered status (purchased sometime before some date in 2003). It seems too good a deal to be true, but she said she had questioned her superiors on it 3 times and they confirmed it. So here are the details as I understand them:
Basically the new maintenance fee for all grandfathered accounts is $150 per user (MAS 90, not sure what MAS 200 will be). This means a company currently grandfathered and owning a 5 user MAS 90 license for core and distribution is probably paying about $2,000 or so for annual maintenance. With this promotion, they can move to EES ($2,500 one time migration fee) and their annual maintenance changes to $150 per user or $750! This means that for roughly an extra $1,200 this year ($3,250 vs the 2,000 they would have paid for maintenance on their current license) they get CRM, and they will get that $1,200 back in Year 2 in reduced maintenance. Starting in year 3 they are saving $1,200 every year and they get to keep CRM.
EES maintenance for a 5 user MAS 90 migration had previously been somewhere just over $2,100 annually, so at $750 it represents a decrease of over $1,300! If it were a 10 user grandfathered, the EES maintenance had been over $4,100, now it is only going to be $1,500, a savings every year of over $2,500 – forever!
This was such an outrageous difference and so un-Sage like that I specifically said that clearly this $150/user charge must only apply to users after the first 5, but I was told specifically no, it applies to all! The catch is that if they add licenses at anytime, the maintenance on those licenses are at normal maintenance pricing.
I have asked for this in writing before we start quoting, but was curious if anyone else has had this conversation with someone at Sage?

My first reaction was that this offer was too good to be true and that there must be a mistake somewhere.

But then two more consultants replied that they’d been offered the exact same promotion and it was explained in the same manner.

Sage’s followup explanation to the promotion seems to confirm that users who owned MAS 90 or MAS 200 prior to 10/1/2003 can probably save quite a bit of money by upgrading to Sage Extended Enterprise. This upgrade requires no data conversion and until you implement the SageCRM or SageFAS  there’s no retraining.

Every MAS 90 or MAS 200 customer who qualifies should be looking into this promotion and talking to their Sage Business Partner about the promotion.

Here’s the final scoop from Sage (received via email on 4/8/09) which seems to confirm the earlier email exchanges:

Through the end of Q3 (June 30th, 2009), you can migrate existing MAS 90 or 200 “Grandfathered” customers to Sage MAS 90 or 200 Extended Enterprise Suite, and offer a flat, per-user annual EES maintenance fee of only $150 per existing user! In most cases, we have been finding that customers can migrate to EES and enjoy lower annual maintenance than they are currently paying! During tough economic times, this may be critical to customers who are struggling! Please make sure to highlight the following benefits when speaking with your clients:
1. Reduce your current annual maintenance and enjoy additional modules and features!
2. Manage your business more effectively with a complete 360 degree view of your business!
3. Streamline costs and enhance customer relationships with full CRM functionality!
This promotion would apply to Sage MAS 90 and 200 customers who purchased their system prior to October 1, 2003, and are currently on a “Grandfathered” status. Please note: the $150 per user fee applies to existing users only. Standard EES maintenance rates will apply to new add-on users. The promotion does not include maintenance on modules and extended solutions outside the EES product suite.
In addition, we have added more dates to our webcast schedule, so please encourage your customers to register for our live Extended Enterprise suite webcasts!

via: 90Minds Consulting Group

See Also : Frequently Asked Questions about Sage Extended Enteprise for MAS 90 and MAS 200