Sage has pulled out all the stops to make the summit as big and brash as it can, with CEO Stephen Kelly claiming the 15,000 attendance made it "the world’s largest gathering of entreprenuers and business builders".

To build the buzz, it appears that Sage has saved up all of its goodies for this week. Some of us have been wondering whether Kelly's transformational crusade to build a global Sage has lost a little momentum.

Sage has counteracted that impression effectively at the event, but the variety of product announcements, alliances and partner tools doesn't make it easy to clarify exactly where Sage is focusing, because it's doing so much simultaneously.

With all these industry conversations taking place, Kerry Mann, the CEO at Tornoto-based Sage partner Mantralogix, commented, "Sage doesn’t have to be best kept secret any more."

Great report - thanks Seth. Due to other commitments I missed the early part of the keynote session and only came in when Joe Woodard took the stage to run Ron Baker and Mark Wickersham through their paces.
Ron certainly does give good quote - the cookie/smoke detector is a classic.
But then he's had a long time and engaged in a lot of debates (some with AccountingWEB members) to hone those lines.
What I found interesting was the way they brought Ron together with 2020's Groups Mark Wickersham. On the face of it, they're partly rivals hoping to influence the same firms. But where Ron has got the vision part nailed down and can always come up with a memorable, inspiring line, Mark is really good at the nuts and bolts and even in his short preview was promising delegates how he could guarantee their success if they followed his 7-point pricing plan. They make a good double act.
Even more powerfully, in some quarters such as among readers of our Practice Excellence pages and in entries to our UK Practice Excellence Awards, the value pricing argument is over for pathfinder firms and they're moving on to the how-to phase that Mark Wickersham addresses.
There will be more to come from San Jose on this subject during the week (along with the product promotion).

Thanks for a great round-up Veronica - I think you've caught the essentials really well, and posed the difficult challenge about the reasons desktop users want to retain their existing arrangements and functionality.
The comparison chart makes it clear that for certain sectors and businesses, the capabilities of QB Pro trump QBO - but for how long is that going to continue?
Intuit has made it clear that while it won't abandon its desktop products yet, it's main focus is on building the market for QBO to catch the new cloud accounting wave. The availability of third-party add-ons to cover things like inventory, payments, advanced reporting and vertical industry needs will greatly extend QBO's reach and functionality, so any head-to-head comparison should also take them into account.
There are a lot of other objections and concerns to talk through, and as chance would have it, that debate has already started in our new Any Answers section:
https://www.accountingweb.com/community-voice/any-answers/which-one-is-b...

For anyone else reading this article, feel free to join this conversation by replying here - or in our Any Answers section. I think there are a lot of issues QuickBooks users on both sides of the fence are going to need to work through.

Well said Seth - I don't think we're in Indianapolis any more, Toto!
A lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to deliver our new baby to you all. It's always hard to fit your old belongings into new premises so readers will need to give the team a bit of time to paint the walls and arrange the furniture. But please let us know what you think about the new AccountingWEB.com by registering with the site and posting your observations here, or in our new, interactive Any Answers section: https://www.accountingweb.com/community-voice/any-answers/