It’s been a long time since I’ve had less of a clue of what might happen at Convergence 2013, the thirteenth show. And I have attended everyone starting with show No. 3. In 2010, there was a big build up to the expected announcement about the cloud from CEO Steve Ballmer. But that turned into a slam-bam-thank-you-Steve event in which the highly anticipated statement on the cloud became a “we’re all in” hit-and-run declaration.

Compensation for the two top executives for the Sage Group dropped by double digits for the year ended September 30. CEO Guy Berruyer earned about $1.5 million for fiscal 2012, down 27 percent from the prior year. CFO Paul Harrison got roughly $862,000, a similar drop. Only pay for the members of the executive committee is reported and the other member, David Clayton, left the board in February 2012, but continued work until June last year.

The CCH Sales Tax Office has been certified for integration with Dynamics AX 2012. However, the big news with CCH is less about links to a particular software package than its showing activity in this market. CCH acquired the former SpeedTax in July 2011 and seemed to go into hibernation in the sales-and-use-tax market. The Sales Tax Office is one of three editions developed from that purchase. But one of the real metrics for CCH in this market is its visibility at the Microsoft Convergence conference, being held next week in New Orleans.

Blackbaud has formed an information management and strategic services group and named Wendy Fox as the VP to head it. The Charleston, S.C.-based nonprofit software vendor said the group “will focus on delivering strategic business information that is timely, reliable, complete and actionable to help nonprofits make data-driven decisions in key areas such as multi-channel marketing.”