Wayne and Darcy attended the annual 90 Minds Meeting of the Minds at the Loews Coronado Resort in San Diego in early March. Wayne is a founding member and active participant in 90 Minds, a private community for ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) consultants and resellers specializing in Sage 100 and now Sage Intacct. Darcy has attended every MOTM but one for over a decade and actively participates on committees throughout the year.
The biggest change to the event itself (in addition to the fabulous new location) was that, for the first year in the 15-year history of Meeting of the Minds, there was a separate track for an additional ERP beyond Sage 100: Sage Intacct. All the Sage Intacct attendees we spoke to said that, while it was a relatively small group being the inaugural year, they found the experience valuable, plan to return, and expect it to grow quite a bit next year!
Sage themselves also had a large presence, with around 20 of the 200 or so attendees being Sage employees.
Keynotes
Sage Senior VP of ERP, Rob Sinfield, delivered the keynote for the second year in a row. Sinfield’s central message reaffirmed Sage’s commitment to continuous investment in Sage 100, though he noted the investment profile might be “slightly different” from previous years. This message of ongoing commitment was the main takeaway for attendees.
Expect to see Sage 100 marketed increasingly as a platform where the core system is already fully capable, not due for a rewrite, and future expansion comes from integrations and use of what is now called the Sage Network Services ( formerly Sage Service Fabric ). This is similar to how Acumatica may refer to their product as a platform.
Sage 100 currently has 14,000 active users on plan, which surpasses Acumatica’s last reported customer count of over 10,000. This number seemed surprisingly strong as it hasn’t changed significantly since the last public count we’d seen in 2022. For comparison Sage’s flagship Intacct product publicly states they have 30,000 finance teams.
Sage has been developing and rebranding its product, originally known as SDMO (Sage Distribution and Manufacturing Operations) and now called Sage Operations.
Reading between the lines, Sage Operations appears to be fading quietly into the background. Sage isn’t saying that out loud, but the signals are there. The product was likely intended to fill a real gap: giving Sage Intacct the inventory, distribution, and manufacturing capabilities it needs to compete for mid-market customers in those industries.
If you need a Sage product for distribution or manufacturing today, Sage seems to be pointing toward X3, which can be a more complex and expensive solution than what SDMO or Sage Operations was.
Sage seems to be betting on X3 as its main product going forward, except for industries like nonprofits, services, and construction, which seem well-suited for Sage Intacct. One sign of this: they recently launched a hosted version where Sage handles the technical upkeep and cloud updates for you, thus alleviating the objection that it isn’t a cloud product.
But X3 has a potential hurdle. It’s known to be complicated and expensive to set up. Some consultants at the conference said implementation costs could start around $450,000. Smaller, cheaper projects are possible, but X3 is a complex product at its core.
Sessions
For the first time 90 Minds offered two technical tracks – one for Sage 100 and one for Sage Intacct. The feedback on both tracks was very positive. The topics covered typical consultant fare such as upgrading Sage 100, tips and tricks and reporting for Sage Intacct.
The Sage 100 developer staff were on hand to meet with what’s termed the “Mod Squad” which is a group of about six to eight 90 Minds members who gather suggestions from membership about future feature enhancements. This coordination with Sage works remarkably well and can result in a dozen or more enhancements from the group being accepted for the new release.
For now, these sessions hosted by Sage are one of the only places that Sage 100 can get one-on-one time with the developers and product managers for Sage 100.
There was one session on the future of consulting where members were seated by table regardless of product that they specialized in and urged to collaborate to provide ideas on where the consulting profession was headed, what obstacles they expect and how to swerve and miss those obstacles.
Wayne Schulz (center) co-presented a session on upgrade best practices with Jim Woodhead (DSD) and Madeline Stefanou (RKL eSolutions)
Expo
The expo was split into two separate expo halls – one for sponsors that focus primarily on Sage 100 and one for those who were there for the new Sage Intacct side of things.
While there were expo areas where sponsors set up tables, sponsors were also encouraged to attend sessions and mingle with the other attendees during meals and networking events.
There were quite a few first-time sponsors in attendance this year for both tracks, as well as some like CIMcloud and ScanForce who have been supporting the event for as long as they’ve had sponsors.
Advanced Networking Events
The unique location on Coronado Island, just across the bridge from San Diego, lent itself to some fun networking events. In addition to most of the meals being served outdoors with sweeping views of Coronado Bay, additional optional networking events before and during the conference included:
- Haunted hotel tour of the famous Hotel del Coronado
- Wine and Whiskey Tasing
- Golf outing at Balboa Park
- First-ever Pickleball Tournament, which is sure to become an annual tradition!
- “MOM Coffee” Women in Tech gathering
“MOM Coffee” is an annual event during MOTM
And the grand event (in our opinion) was the Thursday night dinner and bonfire on the beach. We ate tacos and toasted s’mores by the fires with a beautiful sunset background over the Pacific Ocean.
Congratulations to the board and team at 90 Minds on another great year of learning and networking!
Next year’s Meeting of the Minds will return to the Loews Coronado Bay Resort (Coronado, CA) in early March 2027, and we’ll be there to soak it all in!