Peachtree 2009

Earlier we released Peachtree 2009. This release has some great features - including improvement in the Payroll, Cash Management and Reporting space.

Also, check out Quantum, which include smart posting effort and others enhancements boosting tremendous performance and scalability gains. This will be a great win in the marketplace for our Peachtree/Quantum customers.

Kudos to the Peachtree organization for delivering yet another great release in the marketplace. Keep up the great effort Dena, Katie, Jason, Mandy, Rachel, Jeff, Doug, Rick, Eric, Natalie, Andrea and everyone in the Peachtree organization.

Incredible footprint of the product portfolio – addressing the need of an entrepreneur to an established enterprise; from Peachtree, Quantum, MAS 90/200 to MAS 500 – all seeing new version out in the market place with tons of customer value enhancements, technology uplift, new modules, improved performance and scalability. Way to go team!!!

 

Organization thoughts

Organization is much in my thoughts these days. So I thought of capturing some of those that worked well for me over the years.

1. Think globally act locally – Understand the big picture from business perspective and know where the ship is sailing to rationalize everyday decisions and their impact towards the goal.
2. No Surprises- Trust gets built overtime. One way to foster trust in any relationship is to avoid surprises. It is mutual and my #1 ask of people who work with me – just don’t surprise me. More important – just don’t surprise when there is bad news. It helps keeping lines of communication open and over time groom trust needed in the current competitive landscape.
3. Good news is no news, bad news is good news, no news is bad news- Idea being you can proactively work on improving should you know what the bad news is. It is just terrible when you have no clue what needs fixing or get no red flares. Key is being proactive in identifying bad news and aggressively working to fix it.
4. Learn, Unlearn, Relearn - We live in a time where change happens more often. Technologies and business landscape is ever changing. One definition of illiteracy in the current world order is how fast one can learn, unlearn and relearn the new skills. Ask yourself do you have an appetite to learn as new opportunities knock on the door? Better yet present yourself to those new opportunities.
5. Failure is an option - At times, we make mistake and fail. It is OK to make mistake. Knowing there is a safety net allows new ideas to nurture. But understand successful individuals also know how to fail early; correct quickly; and learn from it to avoid repeating it. You get additional point when you share the learning to peers so that others learn from your mistake. It help build openness, collaboration and trust.
6. Bias to action – Remember - we all have an equal if not more chance to win. As the saying goes – luck favors those that are prepared and destiny is defined by the collective action we take. What need to be done is – act and act now. Take one step at a time without getting caught up with analysis/paralysis. Demonstrating progress and successes all along goes a long way than simple talk for the perfect grandiose plan.
7. Be a problem solver - Highlight the problem but more importantly suggest alternatives and propose solution. Remember fun is in action and showing progress improving things – not by having the best idea in your brain that never gets to see the light of the day.
8. Keep your commitment everyday - If you committed to finish something today – do it. Time and schedule are only as important as you would like them to be. It takes a discipline approach and soon one learns how to constantly prioritize everything that comes their way to ensure what is committed gets done. Whatever we slip – we slip one day at a time.
9. Participate – Be engaged in understanding/participating/influencing organization goal; share your opinion and provide feedback. Also, know when a decision is made how to be the best soldier and execute.
10. Lastly, have stretch goal – Impossible speaks loudly to I-M-Possible. We constantly see things that others would call hard but actually possible for some. This is one difference that makes an organization win over others in the marketplace. Keep in mind organization succeed when people succeed – not the other way around.

Bottom line – Keep an open mind; don’t shy away from going beyond what you know possible and have fun along the way. All work and no fun gets boring pretty quickly.

 

One laptop per child (OLPC)

I came to know about this initiative couple of year back from an article in Fortune. It was an interview with Nick Negroponte – founder of the OLPC initiative.

At the time the effort was in development stage. I remember discussion around the computer to be less than $100; some kind of hand crank process to charge the batteries given much of the developing world don’t have reliable electricity supply; building it rugged for longer life and low maintenance need. Also, there was controversy about laptop going out with an open source alternative (namely Sugar) as opposed to the popular Microsoft Windows.

It is good to see the effort maturing and the laptops made available to the kids in several countries. So as I stumbled on some articles on OLPC this weekend – it is interesting to observe changes/improvement including solar powered battery charger; mesh network to chain these laptops building collaborative infrastructure; and supporting Microsoft clients beside open source (Sugar) available on these machines.

Final price $188. Not bad.

And improving as the next phase gets in development touted XO 2.0 or XOXO with dual touch screen.

 

Here is a review of the laptop on Youtube.

Now comes the responsible (hard) part – ensuring right social behavior gets instilled as millions of kids gets connected and are now accessible to unrestrained information sources; reliable or otherwise. Hole in the wall experiment highlighted some of the accomplishments and challenges in this regard.

Also, I happen to stumble on an article from universities in India quoting to attempt to deliver a laptop for $10.

 

Social networking fatigue

This one is a funny jab on social networking sites. If you have teenagers at home – you are saying good riddance <grin>

Enjoy!!!

MAS 90 4.3 now available too

Now MAS 90 organization delivers next release of MAS 90/200 to manufacturing earlier this week. This release has several customer value features; usability enhancements; business insights improvement; improved integration; and others. It has lot of appeal and value to the customers and prospects.

One of the theme for this release is encouraging our customers to go green, save time, money and the environment by utilizing paperless office and direct deposit functionality. Now save paper, toner and postage costs, conserve office space used for storage, and reduce the time and energy spend in finding archived documents, as well as printing and mailing communications. A relevant theme for the world we live in today helping make world a better place – one small step at a time.

Like an African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” – hearty congratulations to Eliott, Scot, John, Scott, Becky, Jim, Steve, Doris, Linda, Anna, Maria, Debi, Kevin, Karen, Erika, Roberta and everyone in the organization involved in delivering another quality product to the marketplace!

What a prolific year for the MAS organization!!! Keep it up team.

 

MAS 500 7.2 now available

Earlier this week MAS 500 7.2 was released to manufacturing and should be getting generally available to the market. MAS 500 continues to do great in the market place. It is increasingly getting implemented in larger setting than ever before.

This release has several performance/scalability improvements beside two new modules introducing Business Insights Dashboard and Data Import Manager. This release also include other features, enhancements and usability improvements.

MAS 500 team worked hard to deliver this release while keeping up with the Quality goals. I am proud of their accomplishment. You know how to establish and deliver on the goals. Keep it up – Linda, Darrick, Praveen, Ruedi, Wei, John, Doris, Zetulio, Randall and everyone in the MAS 500 organization who worked hard everyday to make it happen.

 

Pun on Apple

I have several friends and colleagues who are die-hard Apple fan. This one is for them – particularly who now owns Apple Air. It is hilarious <grin>

 

Sage recognition in the SMB space

Sometime back, I read Warren Buffett suggesting “franchise value is like having moat around the castle of a business”…durability of channel has profound impact on the business.

Anyway, recently CRN announced its 2008 Channel Champion Award in the category of SMB Software Suites.  This is a measure of channel perception of its software publisher products and services.  It is survey based market study in the industry where award is based upon the responses from the channel partners and their overall level of satisfaction across various categories.  

Check out the Sage Software press release here. Sage continues its recognition in the SMB space.

 

Insights 2008

I will be at Insights 2008 next week. I look forward to meeting several MAS business partners and our Sage fellow colleagues. Time flies. This will be my second Insights conference and I am looking forward to meeting friends, having dialogue, and sharing lot of exciting things happening in our organization.

See you soon!