Effective with maintenance plan renewals on or after March 1, 2012 Sage have indicated they will eliminate their Bronze maintenance plan option and move all Bronze users up to Silver plan.

The Bronze plan is the one used by most of our customers and, until Sage abruptly discontinued it, allowed for periodic software upgrades with no help desk access to Sage.

Under Sage’s Silver plan the additional percentage paid to Sage will be 3% (Bronze was 18% and Silver’s new price is 21% of product SLP). In additional to the benefits Bronze previously offered Sage adds very limited help desk access (5 contacts per year ).

This Sage access is best used for basic front line questions about things such as an error message or a request for a copy of your software unlocking codes. Do not expect them to advise you on best business practices, provide candid opinions on third party solutions  or guide you with non-routine implementation questions. They are technicians working from a knowledgebase, not experienced field consultants with decades of business experience.

Schulz Consulting has a network of 90 fellow consultants working to provide feedback on:

• What is the real world experience with the latest MAS90 upgrade? Is it relatively bug free and  ‘safe’ to install (On December 14, 2011 three of our 90 Minds members caught a critical v4.50 error that was causing some daily transaction registers to double during Sales Order updates – and immediately notified our mutual customers to defer upgrades pending a Sage fix)
• Consultants with skills in scripting (our group has 4 of the best Sage scripting consultants in the country), reporting (we have a Crystal Reports export, a Sage MAS Intelligence expert and several BizNet consultants, custom programming (three of our members are authorized to modify Sage 100 ERP source code), manufacturing (we operate a full time 24 x 7 support area for Job Ops manufacturing software and have half a dozen experts), eBusiness
• Unpublished workarounds for issues not document anywhere in the knowledgebase
• Experiences with add-on software from various third party providers – EDI, Bar Coding, Sales Tax – often we provide references for these services that may or may not reinforce a decision to continue investigating them

 

In short, if you were previously on Bronze maintenance, you will see a 3% increase in the cost of your annual plan if it renews on or after 3/1/12.

If you were on Silver or Gold with Sage – there’s no change.

Schulz Access Agreements for your consulting and systems support remain unchanged.