Force Is With Whom?

SAP

BARBARA DARROW

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Can be reached at (781) 839-1223 or via e-mail at [email protected].

NetSuite CTO Evan Goldberg became Evan Skywalker and company sugar daddy (and Oracle CEO) Larry Ellison made a cartoon cameo as Yoda. (Ellison owns more than half of NetSuite, a real head-scratcher now that Oracle is targeting SMBs with special versions of its own apps.)

NetSuite characterized its own software as a service (SaaS) as offering a better TCO than a combo of Microsoft Great Plains and CRM. “Even Microsoft can’t make their Great Plains and CRM run together. How do they expect you to?” said one NetSuite luminary.

Oakland Athletics General Manager and star of “Moneyball” Billy Beane was on hand, as were former rookies of the year Bobby Cosby and Huston Street, along with Nick Swisher, signing autographs. The tech tie-in? The A’s back office uses NetSuite for its, well, for its back office. Oh, and NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson is a huge A’s fan.

San Mateo, Calif.-based NetSuite positions itself as a channel-friendly alternative to Salesforce.com. Once again, its execs pledged 30 points “now and forever” for partners bringing in business. One quibble: It would have been nice for NetSuite to bring some of those partners up on stage to share a little of the love. The company is touting an even higher degree of customization flexibility in its new release with a SuiteScript toolset that will let developers, VARs, inside IT folks and even non-techies write code using familiar JavaScript methods.

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NetSuite, which admits it is again thinking about an IPO, wants to be known as a low-cost alternative not only to the SAPs of the world but to Microsoft. Interestingly, no comparisons were made to Oracle’s low-end eBusiness suite. As we all know, Microsoft positions its Dynamics offerings as the lower-cost, higher-volume ERP and CRM solutions. Au contraire, says NetSuite, which dragged out its own numbers showing a better TCO for its stuff over three years than even Microsoft Great Plains-plus-CRM can offer. Hmmm.

Which argument do you buy? Let me know at (781) 839-1223 or via e-mail at [email protected].