I skipped most of my assigned sessions yesterday afternoon to hang out in the tradeshow. Mostly to grab some goodies for my five year old but also to make the rounds and see some familiar faces and meet some newcomers.
The one thing that every one that I spoke to had in common was a general enthusiasm for the event and excitement for end user customer arrival (already trickling in but I don’t believe they can get in the tradeshow just yet). To me, this speaks of how well planned and executed Sage Summit has been.
It’s always been my opinion that the strength of Sage products lies in the depth and breadth of add-on products and services. So when these folks are excited, it means good things for the customers, the channel partners and Sage.
Another nice aspect of Summit this year is that the combined back-to-back show helps the exhibitors save on costs that would otherwise be incurred with two separate shows. Most of these vendors are smaller businesses and, in these tight times, every dollar is precious. The savings of a back-to-back customer and partner show allows them to invest in R&D, marketing or other initiatives that will make them stronger. Which feeds customer satisfaction which feeds partner satisfaction which feeds Sage satisfaction in an upward spiral of success. (Maybe that should be Sage’s slogan? Upward Spiral of Success!)
All-in-all, it’s a great showing of third-party add-ons and it’s encouraging to see the innovations being offered this year.
If you are interested in more details on some of the exhibitors, I’ve done a series of posts categorized under “8 Questions with …” on this very site. As a very biased starting article, I recommend this one: http://summitdiary.com/2011/07/07/8-questions-with-azamba-representing-technotropic/
Wayne Schulz
Robert Wood
Peter Wolf
