Sage's introduction of X3 Version 7 last week was a formality. The website for the product – the only Sage midmarket package with its own website – was already packed with V. 7 info. More attention was paid to what Sage's Europe CEO Alvaro Ramirez meant when he said, "Our brand is a disaster." I'm of the opinion he didn't mean it quite the way it sounds but why hand competitors a recruiting tool? The remarks suggest that the rebranding campaign of putting the word "Sage" in front of all products has not worked as well as hoped. Version 7 will be first rolled out in on-premise form next month.

Columbus, a Dynamics reseller based in Copenhagen, has named Keld Jersild Olsen SVP of services. He replaces Steen Hybschmann, who became managing director of Columbus Denmark in February. Olsen was previously SVP at Nets and also worked at Hewlett-Packard where he held jobs as outsourcing manager, services director and country manager and has also was CEO NetDesign.

Xero is moving its North American conference from the fall - the time of year the first and so-far only show was held - to the spring of 2015. The New Zealand-based cloud software company held its first conference in the United States in September 2013 but will not be holding another this fall. "We heard from a lot of our accounting partners that the spring is a better time for them than the fall," says Sharna Brockett, Xero's director of public relations and social media in the United States.

An important thing about NetSuite's product announcements was not what was said, but when it was said. "I was surprised they talked about things so far in the future," said one attendee, referring to the announcement of the 2015 version of the cloud product. "As they deal with increasingly large companies, they have to do that," I replied. And he agreed. NetSuite's average selling pricing has continued to climb—up 50 percent over the prior year as noted in the webcast of the March quarter earnings announcements.