New Sage chief executive Stephen Kelley started a blog very quickly after taking his new job in October. You may remember an item in this publication last month that mused about executives who try to write blogs. Many hopefuls fall by the wayside because their jobs are about running companies and few manage to keep churning out copy. Even those further down the line than senior executive positions often wind up with very little current information in company blogs.

You may not have heard of Forterro. If you read the company's LinkedIn page, Forterro was founded in 2012. But that's not the complete story. Dig into the website's history page and you will find this tidbit: "December 2014: Forterro emerges as holding company for Jeeves, SolvAxis, and future M&A". So while Forterro may be three years old, its role shifted in December. Jeeves Information Systems is an ERP company based in Sweden that was acquired by investment firm Battery Ventures in June 2012.

Manufacturing software vendor QAD turned in its best fourth quarter and best year ever for the period ended December 31. Net income of $12.9 million for 2014 was double the prior year's earnings of $6.4 million. Revenue for the most recently ended year hit $295.1 million, an increase of 10.8 percent from $266.3 million. CEO Karl Lopker said QAD had five deals of more than $1 million in the fourth quarter, compared to one a year earlier and also added 10 cloud customers in 2014's final three months.

Danish reseller company Columbus managed a sharp increase in earnings on unchanged revenue for the year ended December 31. The net result for the year just ended was about $7.6 million, more than twice the total for 2013, while revenue was stagnant at roughly $126. The big problem last year was the United States business. North American revenue was down 14 percent to about $21.4 million. Headcount on the continent dropped to 119 for 2014 from 140.