Sage Software or Microsoft
SageSoftware® or Microsoft?
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."
For years that was a widely accepted business truism. In this later age of PCs and client server systems, Microsoft is considered the safe bet. After all, they have a reputation for buying their way into a new market and using whatever tactics are required to dominate that sphere. Microsoft makes very fine products which dominate many sectors of the corporate IT world.
Microsoft has purchased several established accounting software competitors, including Great Plains Dynamics, Solomon, Navision, Real World and e-Enterprise. It is unlikely that all of these separate products will continue as separate products. Industry opinion is that these will be replaced with a single product family with a migration path from the separately purchased acquisitions.
This may be a great corporate strategy, but does that mean that one of the Microsoft products is the right choice for your enterprise? The total development time of this totally new product is likely to be on the order of two to four years. Then, there will likely be an additional period of two to three years for the product to mature and work for the range of corporate customers that existing Sage products already do. During this time, third party developers will start from scratch to reinvent solutions to narrower industry markets - again, as already exist and thrive for Sage products.
Major coverage of the planned phase out of existing products and new development cycle: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962040.html
Does your business want to participate in this development process? Does your business desire to adapt to a new system now and another system in two or three years when the first iteration of the new Microsoft system starts to become available? Will the new system phase in starting with the modules that you need or will you be required to remain for a period of time on a system being phased out?
DSD is of the opinion that the continually evolving, mature lines of Sage accounting products is more likely to meet the actual needs and goals of today's well managed companies. During this period of new product development, Sage continues to invest and push the capabilities of Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Sage MAS 500 and Sage BusinessWorks. These products are continually being expanded and pushed to meet the demands of today's uncompromising customers...and tomorrow's thriving enterprises.