For Sage BusinessWorks customers, Sage has announced that version 7 is not yet supported on Vista, but they are working on it. As the announcement specifically mentions version 7, I would assume that earlier versions of BusinessWorks will never be supported on Vista.

In case you have managed to dodge the Microsoft Marketing Machine, the latest version of Windows, known as Vista, has been released. For those of you who only need the highlights:

Do NOT upgrade to Vista. The software you use to run your business will most likely NOT run on Vista.

Details on this for Sage MAS 90, MAS 200 and BusinessWorks either have been posted here or soon will be.

Why is Vista not your friend? Let me count the ways:

(1) It just came out. Let someone else find the bugs. (This applies to any software.) If you must buy a new computer now, be sure to specify you want XP Pro installed on it, not Vista.

(2) The same hardware will run slower with Vista than with XP. Vista’s hardware requirements are significantly higher than Windows XP, especially in the areas of memory (now 1 GB as a minimum for efficient operation) and video cards - built-in motherboard video will not work and video cards need to have a minimum of 256MB of RAM in order to run “Aero”. Aero is Microsoft’s latest ripoff of Apple’s user interface (which Apple had running years ago on computers with 256MB of RAM for the whole system.)

(3) The Vista licensing agreement is even more unconscionably one-sided than previous Windows licenses. Basically, Microsoft reserves the right to make you reactivate Vista at any time, and can refuse to reactivate your legitimately purchased software if an when it suits them.
See http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1641&Itemid=135
for more details. Especially note the information about Windows Defender automatically removing any software it, not you, deems to be unwanted. Spyware prevention as spyware itself.

(4) Besides the processing power needed for Aero, Vista is also both slowed down and made more expensive by built-in DRM (Digital Rights Management), which will only play back your legitimately purchased media on “approved” and “licensed” hardware. Oh, and the DRM has already been hacked ( http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?p=24) so the pirates will not be slowed down at all, just the paying customers. All this comes at a time when even the record companies are seeing that DRM is costing them sales and are ready to start selling music downloads without DRM. If even the RIAA has figured out that treating its customers like criminals is poor policy, why has Bill Gates not picked up on that? Has he been fishing with Sonny?

Let Microsoft know you’re not sold on Vista, and let them know why. Demand Friendly software!

The dream of enterprise resource planning systems is that a single application can track and monitor all of a business’s functions in a way that makes sense to all who use it . In a perfect world, a manager opens a single ERP app to find data about any aspect of the business, from financials to HR to distribution schedules to customer relations.

This is easier to do than in the past, if you are a “mid market” sized business. This means you have less than $100,000,000.00 in sales and probably only work in 1 or 2 or 3 countries. If you are the owner, you are wearing more than one hat and not spending enough time on planning where you want to be or in developing the managers of the future.

The reason most companies are not there yet is not because the software cannot handle their needs. Sage Software and Friendly Systems have several good choices for businesses that want that kind of integrated information system. What holds up the implimentation of the ERP integrated system is the lack of middle management expertise that knows how to use information systems to monitor their areas.

Many mid market managers we deal with are “seat of the pant”‘ managers. They want to hear what is going on. They live in the present and the future and have not any time to look at “where we have been”.

Sage now has a good tool for those kind of managers. It is called “Insight” and it provides a dashboard which can give managers a snapshot of the condition of their business.

Call us and let us show you how you can use the Sage Insight toolbox to get your company to the next level.

Which data to convert?

This is a question we often get from businesses who are contemplating a change from their existing business software systems. There is lots of data already captured and some of it is needed and some of it is not.

The cost of converting the data needs to be compared to the benefits that are gained from having historical data moved to the new system. A fixed price for the conversion is a key factor in your decision about converting data. If you can identify what you need and what you don’t, then your prospective reseller should be able to give you a dollar amount to convert the data desired.

When possible, get the cost to convert data that you consider “optrional”. Then you can more easily determine the return on investment (ROI) for that decision. For example, if you only compare your financials for the current and prior year, do you really need to bring over all the detail from the past 5 years? If your inventory balances are out of whack, do you need then moved to the new system?

Remember that usually you can keep the older system running, while you also use your new software system. This can give you the best of all possible worlds. In some cases, reports can be prepared using data from both the old and new systems if the basic data fields are storing the same types of data, using programs like Crystal Reports.

Call Friendly Systems and let us show you how easy it is to move to a more efficient ERP and Manufacturing system without losing your important data.