Oracle, Sage Share Laurels

It would be hard to find much in common with Oracle, the $18 billion software behemoth, and Sage Software, which is about one-thirtieth Oracle's size. But this year the two vendors tied for first place in the VARBusiness Annual Report Card Business Software/Management product category, each racking up total scores of 68.

For Sage, which is making its first ARC appearance, it was an impressive debut. The vendor beat Oracle in the partnership subcategory (66 to 62) and tied with the giant company in support (67 to 67). Only in the product innovation scores (74 to 70) did Oracle win out over Sage.

The Business Software/Management category includes ERP, supply chain management and product life cycle management applications.

Oracle's overall score compares with the 69 it earned last year in the business software category when it came in second to Microsoft. (VARBusiness made late changes to the categories this year and Microsoft declined to participate in the Business Software/Management category when it was unable to fulfill the requirements in time.)

"Sage is so much better to their partners," said Merilyn Van Zwieten, COO at Partners in Technology, a Wheaton, Ill.-based solution provider that resells Sage's MAS 90 and 200 applications. Sage outscored Oracle 73 to 66 in sales support and Van Zwieten illustrates why. Partners in Technology recently found itself competing against Microsoft's Navision (part of the Dynamics product line) for a new sales prospect. Sage marketers worked with the reseller, providing ideas for presenting the product and tailoring the sales pitch.

"I think they are very good at helping us position ourselves in front of prospects that are also looking at competitive products," she said.

Sage also outscored Oracle in other support category criteria, including maintenance support and training. But Oracle held the edge in quality of field management and market support. Sage won the competition in most criteria in the partnership category, including partner portal, solution provider program, communication, ease of doing business and return on investment. In managing channel conflict, Sage scored 66 to Oracle's 56. Only in revenue and profit potential did Oracle score higher than Sage.

Sage's ARC performance is the fruit of several channel partner programs the vendor has inaugurated in recent years. Most visible has been the "100/100" initiative under which Sage spends $1 million a year to provide 100 resellers with $10,000 to recruit a salesperson. "We have a simple mantra that if we want to be successful, our partners have to be successful," says Taylor Macdonald, the company's chief channel and strategy officer.

Linda Peters, president of Sage partner Sweetwater Consulting, gives Sage credit for encouraging VARs to work with each other. Sweetwater, a two-person consultancy that resells Sage software to process manufacturers, was too small to meet sales thresholds to earn a percentage of annual support revenues. So with Sage's blessing, Sweetwater works under the "sales umbrella" of Emerald TC, another Sage channel partner, Peters says. Resellers also earn 10 percent of sales leads one reseller passes on to another, she said.

Sage hopes to maintain its momentum through new support programs launched in May at its Insights 2007 business partner conference.

Yet, Oracle maintains a clear lead in product innovation in Business Software/Management. While the two vendors tied with scores of 73 for quality and reliability, Oracle drew higher scores for richness of product features and functionality, compatibility and ease of integration, marketability and service opportunities. And it was no contest in technical innovation where Oracle's score of 76 was 13 points higher than Sage's.

But Sage seems determined to improve its product innovation scores and is spending more on R&D, Macdonald noted.