NetSuite unveils development platform

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NetSuite, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider that floated at the end of 2007, today announced a major new enhancement for third party software vendors by launching its 'Business Operating System' platform that will allow more tailored development and vertical customisation of the company's software suite.

The NetSuite Business Operating System (NS-BOS), is an application development platform for third party software developers based entirely on standards-driven technology, in particular JavaScript. The platform also incorporates existing NetSuite products and technologies including the SuiteFlex ISV customisation platform, SuiteBundler vertical packaging solution, as well as the core NetSuite business product.

The idea is that rather than having to learn another proprietary development language and environment, good web developers will be able to bring their existing skills into the NetSuite environment, and quickly begin working with the web-based interface and application set.

"That was one of the main reasons we stuck with industry standard technologies with NetSuite," said Mini Peiris, vice president of product management at NetSuite.

"It is all standard JavaScript at the core, not a new proprietary language and platform. Anyone familiar with JavaScript can quickly and easily adapt to developing within the BOS."

The development environment also includes a real-time debugging tool, SuiteScript D-Bug, speeding up fault-finding and helping to reduce the time needed to develop and deploy a working customisation.

"You can't have a development platform without some way to debug your code," added Peiris. "We've done it in a way to make it very easy to debug code in real-time, so there's always feedback on how your code is coming along."

With the ability to develop and radically customise the NetSuite platform, comes the risk of creating a proprietary skew of the main product that will be difficult to maintain and upgrade centrally, one of the key features of the hosted NetSuite solution. However, the company is confident that it has applied its development platform in such a way that upgrades to the core infrastructure will not break customisations or visa versa.

"We've been allowing customers to customise NetSuite for their business for some time. It has been designed in a way that we can still maintain the core application without worrying about breaking the customisations; the core is abstracted from the user and vertical customisations," said Peiris.

NS-BOS, not to be confused with the pre-Windows MS-DOS, has already been made available to acknowledged developers and testers, along with new customers. The company will be completing a phased rollout to existing customers over the next few months, with a target completion date of May.

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