Sage: Software At Lightning Speed

Sage was one of the pioneers of the PC
revolution, having gotten its start in England
back in 1981. The founder, David Goldman, saw
an opportunity to automate accounting
processes – and convinced several Newcastle
University students to help him with the coding.
Well, the timing was spot-on and it did not take
long for Sage to grow. After all, by the late
1980s, the company was publicly traded on the
London Stock Exchange. And then ten years
later, Sage would become a member of the elite
FTSE 100.
But as is the case with many tech operators, the
company would get mature and fairly stale. It
seemed that management was more interested
in preserving its market share and dividends.
For the most part, the strategy was to be mostly
defensive and reactive.
However, given the intense competitive
environment, the approach was certainly
dangerous. So to rev things up again and get
Sage back to its innovative roots, Stephen Kelly
took the helm of the company about a year ago.
No doubt, he has wasted little time in making
bold decisions.
“My aim has been to make a break from the
past,” said Stephen. “We need to be mobile,
social and in the cloud. We also need speed,
speed and speed.”
OK, this may seem like just a bunch of corporate
mush. In fact, when I met Stephen at
Dreamforce, I noticed that he was wearing socks
that had colorful cloud designs. Oh, and he was
doing daily Twitter Periscope videos where he
answered questions. He was even giving away
lollipops that had the initials ERP — with a red
line through it!
Fun, yes… but was this all real?