NetSuite Takes Center Stage On Final Day Of Oracle OpenWorld

Almost a year since Oracle closed its acquisition of NetSuite, the second-largest deal in company history, NetSuite founder Evan Goldberg and Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd (pictured) shared thoughts Wednesday on how the two companies are driving NetSuite adoption around the globe.

Goldberg, now executive vice president of Oracle's NetSuite business, told attendees of the Oracle OpenWorld conference that the pioneering cloud-based business software vendor had scaled sales across product lines as a division of the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software giant.

With Oracle's financial backing and technological underpinnings, NetSuite is bolstering the capabilities of its portfolio and discovering new opportunities in the market, Goldberg said.

[Related: Oracle's Larry Ellison Introduces Security Cloud, A New Weapon Against Hackers]

The potential for unique synergies and natural integrations is why NetSuite was "the most exciting acquisition we've ever done," said Hurd, who Goldberg introduced onto the keynote stage as "my boss's boss."

With Oracle's help, the SuiteCloud Platform that delivers tools for extending NetSuite's environment is penetrating new markets and regions, Goldberg said.

"The pace is now blistering" of growth in the number of partners building differentiated capabilities with the software, which sits on top of the Oracle database, the former NetSuite CTO said.

NetSuite has also been building integrations with some of Oracle's cutting-edge products, such as enabling Oracle's new blockchain service to run through SuiteCloud.

Product advances have been made across the portfolio, from incorporating best-practices into industry-specific editions of SuiteSuccess management software, to extensions of the integrated HR system SuitePeople, to new solutions for financial planning and budgeting.

Those products all integrate with each. "It all works together. That's our secret sauce," Goldberg said.

Also, they all have begun leveraging Oracle's core technology, such as the Oracle Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance for backup, Oracle's multi-tenancy capabilities, and its scaled cloud infrastructure to improve resiliency.

NetSuite is achieving "more scalability, more performance by integrating with these Oracle technologies," Goldberg told OpenWorld attendees.

And NetSuite partners want to learn more about Oracle solutions as well, he added.

The companies have collaborated closely over the years – a close relationship rooted in Oracle founder Larry Ellison's role as one of NetSuite's initial investors.

"NetSuite to us was first a great partner," Hurd said, adding both companies excel in one of the software industry's biggest categories – ERP.

NetSuite's business management product originated serving small and midsized customers. Oracle has long focused on the was trying and most-complex deployments in the world.

"Our view was this was the perfect complement to what we were doing," Hurd said of joining the two ERP suites under one roof.

Oracle's strategy when acquiring NetSuite, Hurd said, was simple: accelerate the cloud-based business software vendor's opportunity in the market through Oracle technology.

"Our view was trying to give NetSuite all of the best of Oracle," Hurd said, and "so far we've seen an acceleration of growth."

That means increased distribution, more points of presence, more salespeople, and more partners, Hurd said.

The push has been exceptionally strong outside the U.S., where it is traditionally hard for American software companies to continue scaling. However, in other countries, especially in Europe, there's a lot more small and midsize business that could benefit from the capabilities NetSuite delivers, Hurd said.

Many of those initiatives would have been prohibitively difficult for NetSuite had it remained a public company. Under Oracle, research and development have increased 20 percent, and distribution by 30 percent, Hurd said.