CRN Interview: Ron Verni, CEO, Best Software

Best Software Chief Executive Officer Ron Verni spoke with Editor/News Steven Burke about the software maker's new Partner Advantage program, the battle with Microsoft in the midmarket and other issues.

CRN: Would you talk a little bit about how much Best Software is investing in Partner Advantage and whether you're going to expand the solution provider base?

VERNI: Right now we have a large and diverse group of people in the hundreds and hundreds who have been serving the market segment and have been crossing over. The goal is to be able to put the focus on all those different folks so that we can educate our partners about our entire portfolio. So from a pure dollars investment [standpoint, we are certainly going to be investing in the program.

CRN: Do you anticipate adding more partners?

VERNI: We are certainly selective every year in the partners that we add. We are finding that many times it's easy to add large numbers, but given the relationship we have with our channel partners and the way we qualify them, not everyone is going to be able to participate. We do envision growing our partner channel

CRN: How does Best Software's strategy compare with Microsoft's?

VERNI: If you look at Microsoft on the entry level, they really need to understand how to get a product that can gain some kind of traction.

We added 47,000 customers in the first half of this year alone. We have 1.6 million sitting in our customer database that we have a relationship with. What we're hearing from high-quality partners is they don't necessarily want to have 10,000 other partners in their territory because it takes a unique kind of partner to be able to understand business needs, not the technical needs. That is easy enough to do. Anyone can install something from a network, but matching the product to business needs [is key.

Our products in the midmarket have been customizable for years. We have toolsets that allow our products to be tailored to individual businesses, and partners play an important role there. We will not go out and try to enlist tens of thousands of partners. That won't serve the end customer. We need a high-quality partner who is well trained and certified, who sells enough of our product to be able to become familiar with it.

CRN: Talk about the midmarket strategy and whether you see strong growth there vs. in the enterprise segment.

VERNI: As far as enterprise,the term,we just renamed our Best Enterprise Product MAS 500 because of the concept of enterprise as the upper midmarket. It's interesting that Microsoft and Great Plains are taking the same naming tactic. But enterprise as a term doesn't appear to be a market. It was a market that was trying to be created. What is there, though, is business management software solutions like MAS 90, MAS 200 and MAS 500.

So basically, when we look at that segment, and when we go back and look at growth, 95 percent of all midmarket [companies have an accounting solution. So it's becoming very much a replacement market. And where they're growing, they're coming either from the [Intuit QuickBooks base or the Peachtree base.

So what we've done to differentiate ourselves and to help our growth strategy is to focus on those Peachtree customers who are growing and need a midmarket solution. About two years ago, 8 percent of all our new units sold in the midmarket into our MAS 90 product came from Peachtree. And in the half we just completed, it was more than 31 percent. So we believe growth will come from taking our large Peachtree base and keeping it within our family.