NetSuite-Oracle: End Of A Beautiful Friendship?

The rapport between NetSuite, largely owned by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and Oracle itself has been a puzzle for some time. Especially since Oracle relaunched versions of its own apps for the SMB market where once it offered NetSuite (once also known as NetLedger) hosted apps.

That smacked of conflict but apparently that conflict is getting smaller. For the fiscal year ending June 30 Oracle reported buying $375,000 worth of NetSuite software and services, ostensibly for resale to SMB customers, according to its recent proxy. That figure is down dramatically from the nearly $1.7 million million in NetSuite goods Oracle bought in the previous fiscal year. For the past year, Oracle also paid $35,000 for future NetSuite services compared to $444,000 for the previous year.

For Oracle this is probably no huge deal, but it could be a bit of a pain for NetSuite which is trying to go public, observers say.

Oracle is slated to announce its first quarter FY 2007 earnings tomorrow afternoon.