Passing the Torch

Introduction

As many people already know, I’ve now retired after 23+ years with Computer Associates/Sage working on the Accpac/Sage 300 product line. I’m now happily living in Gibsons, BC which is a short 40 minute ferry ride from Vancouver.

John Thomas (aka JT)

John Thomas will be taking over for me as the Chief Architect for the Sage 300 product line. He will also be taking over my role as Sage 300’s main blog writer. His blog is on WordPress here: https://jthomas903.wordpress.com/. Follow this blog to keep up to date on Sage 300.

It will also be posted on Sage City here: http://sagecity.na.sage.com/support_communities/sage300_erp/b/sage_300_erp_r_and_d/archive/2016/03/21/sage-300c-transition. He will continue to post articles to the Sage 300 In Development blog area on Sage City as well as on WordPress.

Check out his first blog posting where he introduces himself and you can learn a little about him. Introduce yourself via the comments section. All bloggers always appreciate any suggestions on topics for future articles.

JT and myself by a giant Banyan Tree in Bangalore, India.

My Blog

I’ll continue writing my blog, but it probably won’t be on Sage 300 anymore. A lot of my blogs relied on having the support and expertise of the team around me to help out. I really appreciate all the help and support I’ve received over the years from everyone at Sage as well as all the people in the wider Sage 300 community.

Of course I won’t delete my blog, or delete any articles. They will remain on WordPress as long as WordPress keeps hosting them. They will also remain on Sage City where I have always mirrored them. I’ll probably continue to fix typos or make corrections to any errors that I notice or are pointed out to me.

Also feel free to keep asking questions, but beware that I can’t go down the hall to ask an expert on a topic and I can’t consult the source code anymore. But I’ll still do my best to answer, though the answer may be to go ask tech support.

I am very tempted to finish a few projects I never had time for at Sage, like investigating tying Azure Machine Learning (or perhaps Google’s or Amazon’s machine learning) to Sage 300. Or perhaps using Azure Logic App (or Azure App Service) to create workflows around Sage 300. Or perhaps do a POC with Sage 300 and Microsoft’s Power BI. But I think I’ll leave those projects to others for now. I do have a few opinions and bias’s on Accounting Software, Software Development, the Cloud and future trends that I may still blog on in the future.

Chances are what I will be blogging on will be more around my other interests that I’ve been getting back to now that I’m retired. These would include:

• Photography – including via DLSR and via my Drone.
• Guitar – now that I have time to practice again.
• Triathlon – running, swimming and biking.
• Hiking – there’s great hiking here on BC’s Sunshine Coast.
• Video Games – I’ve been playing with the Amazon Lumberyard game engine.
• Artificial Intelligence – I’ve been reading quite a bit about this lately and there are some amazing advances currently in the works. For instance, Google’s AI just beat the world Go champion.
• Travel – I do plan to do a lot more travelling and suspect I’ll be blogging about it.

The nice thing about being retired is that I can pursue a lot of diverse interests. So who knows where these will lead over the coming months.

Summary

As I move on to the next phase of my life, so will my blog. But I have full confidence in JT and the Sage 300 team to carry the torch forward. I’m eagerly waiting to see JT’s future blog postings and see the various press releases as Sage 300 continues to evolve.