back to article Sage boosts profit but that means NOTHING without the CLOUD

Sales rose 6.5 per cent to £699m during accounts-ware biz Sage's half-year results, despite the company's poor cloudy progress. Pre-tax profits increased 4.9 per cent to £173m, compared with the first half of its previous financial year. Stephen Kelly, chief executive officer, said the company is in the process of overhauling …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. James 100

    No clouds for customers

    We use Sage at work - and are firmly in the "traditional" camp. Not because we have anything against "cloud" services as such - we use Google Apps, and our main business is selling hosted solutions - but for cost: we bought a copy of Sage a decade ago. Then bought a newer version two years ago, because the old version was finally showing its age (didn't work well on Windows post-Vista IIRC). As long as the VAT rules don't change in an incompatible way, why would we want to buy another until we're unable to use Windows 8.1?

    Of course, those are exactly the reasons we don't sell software outright ourselves, and why Sage would prefer to push hosted solutions with an ongoing charge as well... - and exactly why most customers will resist.

    1. VinceH

      Re: No clouds for customers

      "and why Sage would prefer to push hosted solutions with an ongoing charge as well..."

      When the article refers to subscriptions and a subscription model here:

      "Software subscription rose 29 per cent for the first six months. However, this reflects a move to a subscription model across its portfolio rather than just cloud products, said Roe."

      It doesn't just mean hosted solutions: They're moving to a subscription model for traditional desktop software - with the incredible flustercuck potential that has. I asked their Twitter-bod to clarify some points a while back: Specifically, what happens to your data stored in your desktop copy of Sage if you decide to stop using Sage (i.e. paying them for the use of the software) and move to something else.

      The answer was basically that you are no longer able to access it. Legally, you need to keep your business records for six years - which kind of necessitates those records being accessible. So before your sub ends, you need to extract all that data, something that most people wouldn't think of doing.

      And how do you extract it? Different accounts packages store different information in different ways - so simply exporting the data ready for importing into something else isn't really practical; you'd end up pretty much doing a second time a lot of the accounting work you've already done, in order to recreate the figures as they should be. The only other option is to export every report as a PDF file, covering every key point and period, which would be tedious at best.

      A better, and fairer solution would be for the software to become read only, so you can still access that data but can't put anything else in - which Sage could easily do; the mechanism already exists in their software for "archived" data.

      IMO Sage's subscription offerings aren't so much "software as a service" but "data as a protection racket".

      1. Alan Bourke

        Re: No clouds for customers

        While haven't worked with Sage since the mid 1990s (Sage Sovereign how are ya) but I assume the mid-range and higher is still customisable and extendable by resellers. All that will go by the wayside too if everyone has to be on the same cloudy version all the time.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Profits

    Thats only because they dont invest in hardware for testing on. Just ask the Winnersh office.

  4. phuzz Silver badge
    Joke

    Dear el Reg.

    I understand why you put pictures at the top of articles, it helps add a little visual flair. However, in this story someone (presumably a naughty work experience kid) has changed the pic to some kind of grinning lizard in a skin suit.

    As you can imagine, seeing someone who resembles a CEO is very distressing for those of us who have had to deal with management in the past.

    I trust that you will not display such images in the future.

    Yrs

    Captain D. Winterbottom (ret) Mrs.

    1. BearishTendencies

      Having worked with Stephen Kelly in Cabinet Office

      I can assure you that this is not a picture of 'some kind of grinning lizard in a skin suit'. It is instead a picture of 'an enormous bellend of a grinning lizard in a skin suit'.

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