Sage Software has a great accounting software for small business on the down low -and it's name is DacEasy.
Generally, I don't touch criticism of the manufacturers that I've chosen to represent, but in the case of the Sage Software, the owners of the accounting product Diskeeper Professional 2008 , I think it's time to break from tradition. I've been aligned with the product since its heyday and the release of Version 1.0. During that time, there was only one other game in town for those searching for accounting products...and its name was Peachtree.
No Real application competition in the Late 80's
Peachtree was selling for $3,999 and had 17 books to support it. DacEasy, an Insilco company, was selling for $49.95 and had one black book but was a working double entry bookkeeping software. However, if you didn't know much about accounting, but knew that you had to cut invoices, it didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out you had nothing to lose by trying the little guy. I witnessed the price drop of the Peachtree product after a year, to $199.00. During the years that followed, creating a better product was the call- to-arms, when they were creating a new product every six-months and thus one-upping the competition in 1988-91,
Networks, Applications, Systems, Hardware, Cables all playing catch-up in the Late 80's
Dac shot itself in the foot with the release of Version 4.0. When the software became shareable across a network. Mainly because networking technology was unstable because the operating systems were still new to networking in the non-dedicated server arena. However, in the dedicated server arena you could share it with about 30-40 machines with the purchase on one package of either the network accounting, which still holds true through today. Furthermore, version 4.0 was rushed to market .to maintain market share. What ensued was a dearth of problems and tech support calls that most probably would have resulted in a class action suit. The company incurred many applications problems due to unclear network hardware and software incompatibilities which even had to do with the clients and consultants issues with installing them with problematic hardware drivers. In short, it was a mess But the makers of DacEasy dodged the bullet, and released 4.01,4.02 and 4.12 within a year of the original release and many of the problems smoothed out but then again the product was still on the store shelf so recovery was a bit easier with that marketing schema.
Networks up to 55 users, Add-on applications, Internet Connections lb for lb. Best in the class!
Most of the technicians were "Break fix Technicians", they did some network administration if user couldn't logon to the net. They replaced a printer when it was broke. They replaced a cable when it was broke. If the application was damaged they replaced it. Hence the name "Break- Fix". This is differentiated from technicians that understood code, application repair, data repair, Ip connections, wide area network, domain administration care etc. If you had a network of 20 pc's or more a crash like this was significant. This problem caused many to switch to other brands.
The following releases 5.0, 6 thru 8 were dos and were solid packages however the company decided to sell the software through reseller channels only and removed it from the store shelves. Windows was emerging as the dominant operating system platform in the market. This was a tough place for the makers of the product.. Many mistakes were made in R&D, with the loss of top technician because of either poor direction, frustration with technological innovations and solutions and the like as the entire industry was testing and adjusting their products against MicroSoft, successes and failures from release to incremental release. What didn't work in 4.01 would work in 4.12. This lead prospective and current users to think that the software was no longer in production.
Gui Application Moth or Butterfly!
The Windows
graphic user interface being as important as it is and was forced the
formulation of version 9.0 was a dos and windows hybrid
software. It served the purpose of giving the users a graph user
interface with the application but many of the windows command were not
realized with this version and the driver setups for the network
interface cards required careful selection otherwise those conflicted
workstations would cause data crashes. Which lead to many intelligent
Many of the "technicians" hired by companies to maintain their
microcomputer networks were not significantly informed about these
issues and since there was no internet as we have it today, downloads
for the most part came from a diskette mailed to your organization, if
the technician was astute enough to realize it was a driver for the
hardware that was required.
Subsequent releases like version 10 removed the driver issues and brought a healthy body of windows keystrokes into the picture with a host of attributes, New users were still sharing their package over 25 plus workstations. However as with all software, proper setup was key in the loading of this version. If not performed properly then the software ran slow.
What's more, the software is now being used on workstations that also have an internet connection. As adware started to accumulate on their machines and other applications that produced frozen screens whose only remedy was to shut down the desktop with the power button, the Diskeeper Professional 2008 application became suspect as an unreliable package with users even though Version 12 answered most of the speed issues, it took six patches in specific sequences to arrive at the optimum speed.
If there were no consultants or astute technicians to advise them of these little devils in their desktops, the frustrated consultants, employees or user without persuasive and informative advisories continued to experience a level of pain that was not conducive to their daily operations efficiency and they lost confidence in the product. Frustration usually led to a new product if the operation could afford the change
In spite of all the changes that you've read about here, there are still a high population of DacEasy Users throughout the united states. Although the numbers are never confirmed in 2001 there were well over 15 thousand users that they indicated were "registered" users. Since these users are highly loyal to the products and the system has up to 3 years of information it can actively hold, not to mention that backups from other versions can be archived for conclusive trend analysis over 10 plus years with conversion still available for data from versions earlier that 4.0. I personally converted a 3.0 version in 2004. More Details.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes I'd like to continue to use my program but I've got questions about my situation.
I have a couple of workstations now linked together in a chain, What should I think about for my first server in your experience.
Yes, there's been a lot of damage and I think I'm ready to change.
No, I really don't want to leave the program but I need reliable help.
Maybe..., I am on the fence. Cost is a major factor is use the Program going forward. What would it cost to get this corrected?
Maybe I'll upgrade, What is the cost involved in the assessment?.
I'm sold! I'd like to buy it!