NetSuite vs QuickBooks Online

NetSuite marketing team is well known for its sense of humor. But before their humor was mainly inspired by SAP and its "stealth" launch of SaaS solution SAP Business ByDesign (that let NetSuite make its business). By the way, it's interesting that actually NetSuite drives away Oracle's customers as well as SAP's, but with respect to Oracle, the NetSuite marketers behave much more modest, because the Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison in co-owner of NetSuite. But let's go back to hairballs. What is it? According to NetSuite, the hairball - is a thing that happens when a company deploys disparate IT systems and then tries to integrate them. The conclusion is simple - use NetSuite, where everything is natively integrated. In addition to funny video NetSuite unveiled the updated system interface and seamless integration with Google Apps:

Major SaaS vendors are now less interested in providing applications - they want to create web platforms and grab the world (and earn commission on the other developers). Salesforce was the first to play this game, then Google, NetSuite, SugarCRM and others jumped into this wagon. Box.net (that doesn't have such financial strength as the above mentioned companies) invented even more interesting platform strategy. Box.net wants to be present on each popular platform. First, they created the connector for Force.com, then joint the Intuit Partner Program and Google Apps Marketplace, and recently released modules for SuiteCloud and Sugar 6. Thus, they build the cross-platform cloud content management system. This system allows to store all content in a single online repository and access it in different SaaS systems used in the company: CRM, ERP, Collaboration system. Even more interesting is the opportunity to create shared cross-company extranet based on Box.net: for example, the same file may be available from Salesforce account owned by company A and NetSuite account owned by company B.

Netsuite has already missed the opportunity to use the Social CRM buzz. Salesforce and some other CRM vendors have already unveiled social features and launched the marketing promotions. But Netsuite has all chances to become the first to offer Social ERP. Today Netsuite and InsideView announced about the new partnership in order to create the Social ERP. But why do we need this social ERP software? Everything was clear with social CRM: salesperson needs to monitor customers and leads in the social networks in order to involve into the discussions and sell something. But why ERP, that  is intended for resources accounting and planning, needs the similar features? Netsuite has found some answers to this question.

After Microsoft discontinued its accounting software Microsoft Money, it seemed that the company has lost interest in small business applications and would be satisfied with the fact that small companies use Windows and MS Office. But lately, even Windows and MS Office are under threat in this segment due to the new SaaS services (including Google Apps). That's why Microsoft is now trying to defend its presence on the SMB market. Recently the company announced partnership with Intuit, the developer of most popular accounting program QuickBooks. A couple years ago, Intuit has opened the QuickBooks online version and the platform for developers IPP (something like Force.com). So, this platform together with the huge QuickBooks user base is of course, an excellent channel that Microsoft could use to promote its products on the SMB market.