NetSuite unveils major new hosted app release

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Software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider NetSuite today announced major new release of its integrated business application platform.

Called NetSuite 2007, the application is a single hosted platform running entirely from a single database, on which to run an entire business, covering everything from high-impact business functionality such as CRM, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and accounting down to stock control, electronic payment handling and even shipping logistics.

Today's launch at the headquarters of the Trade Union Congress in central London was the first time NetSuite has announced a major update to its product outside of the US, a move designed to underline the importance of the UK market to its business.

"We have around 5,000 customers globally, and our Uk business is growing, in some areas more rapidly than our main US business" said NetSuite chief executive Zach Nelson.

In his presentation, Nelson clearly alluded to targeting current and potential customers of rival companies such Salesforce and Sage with the new release, in particular Sage which offers both traditional client server accounting and CRM software as well as retrofitting some of its apps into a hosted environment.

"Heavy customisation is usually required to make them fit into a business, and users struggle to get comfortable with complex applications. Making the same apps easier usually happens at the expense of the functionality and the features the users actually need and want" Nelson added.

By making use of modern web technologies such as AJAX, the NetSuite product provides a dynamic and interactive front-end to business data, sitting alongside an enterprise-level reporting engine and graphing system that can show the information in real time and in ways that makes it easy to understand and follow.

Primary users for the NetSuite product have come from the smaller business community, but with recent releases, the company has picked up several large customer deployments, most notably in the UK in the form of telecoms giant Carphone Warehouse, which uses NetSuite across several divisions of the company and has integrated it with client and server-side systems.

"SaaS is increasingly being a strategic decision for large enterprise businesses" said David Bradshaw, principle analyst in Ovum's software group. "It is bringing business professionals and the IT department together in the buying process and ensuring that all sides have a better understanding of what work takes place and what tools are needed to do it."

New features in NetSuite 2007 include SuiteBundler, a batch automation system for new feature deployment and configuration of accounts and reseller deployments; as well as the globalisation of the accounting software, making it easier for a company to manage multinational accounts and subsidiaries all via the one NetSuite deployment. This is possible by allowing divisions to work and report figures in local currency while still running the business as a whole in a different one. All currency calculations are performed in real-time as demanded using live or pre-set currency data.

The market for SaaS products has grown rapidly in recent years, attracting attention from several traditional business software vendors including SAP, Microsoft, Sage and Siebel, as well as NetSuite's most vocal competitor and another online pure play, Salesforce. SaaS adoption has been fuelled by the growth and availability of cheap broadband in the US, UK and mainland Europe and the need of smaller businesses to access more capable, powerful and scalable business applications, but which lack the skills, size or financial ability to employ dedicated IT staff to manage locally hosted enterprise software systems.

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