Sage has added SWK Technologies to their Sage Partner Cloud Strategic Hosting Provider program. This brings to three the number of providers (as of May 2022) with the other two being Cloud@Work ( Sage 100 & 300 as well as Sage CRE and Sage X3) and Swizznet ( Sage 300 CRE ). The benefit of the program is that Sage has a stringent set of requirements prior to admitting a provider to the program.
Sage Partner Cloud Options
Sage offers two Sage Partner Cloud options with the first being Sage Provisioning Portal with Microsoft Azure. This is referred to internally as Sage Partner Cloud and is offered by authorized Sage business partners. The second is Sage Strategic Hosting Provider Program which allows traditional hosting providers to offer a hosting option through Sage.
History
First introduced in December 2020, the Sage Partner Cloud program encouraged authorized resellers to utilize Azure and a provisioning dashboard to automate to migration of customer sites to Azure. Under this model authorized resellers would act as a MSP ( Managed Service Provider ) without the need to use a separate hosting provider.
In June 2021 Sage expanded their Partner Cloud program with the addition of a Strategic Hosting provider option. This Sage-accredited program requires evaluation by Sage as well as a evidence of security audits. While Strategic Hosting Provider requires the use of Azure, the Strategic Hosting Provider option allows for a broader selection of hosting platforms.
What’s It Mean?
This is a rather smart way for Sage to offer a hosting option for its traditionally on-premises solutions such as Sage 100 and 300 without Sage having to become a host.
Over the next 12-18 months I expect to see most of the large Sage business providers either become Strategic Hosting Providers or develop relationships with independent Strategic Hosting Providers.
Sage partners who haven’t started with the Sage Partner Cloud program will likely bypass the need to maintain Azure ( Sage Partner Cloud ) and partner with a Strategic Hosting Provider.
Watch for the admission of independent hosting providers to the Strategic Hosting Provider program. This would fill in gaps for Sage partners who don’t already offer their own hosting but are reluctant to send their customers to a competitor for hosting.
