July 26th, 2006
NetSuite reveals Salesforce.com's Achilles heel
Just prior to a panel at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit panel on software as a service that includes the three bigger upstart players–Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com; Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite; Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies–NetSuite send out a press release touting Salesforce.com defections to NetSuite. The release states that "Salesforce.com’s newly announced SAP connector essentially reveals Achilles heal: a CRM application without ERP integration is basically useless. CRM without ERP is like ham without eggs, Sonny without Cher."
First it’s Achilles heel. Secondly, for larger enterprises with SAP or other major ERP solutions, a Salesforce.com connector is a good thing. The thousands of switchers from Salesforce.com appears to be mostly smaller companies (Briefing.com, Superheat FGH Services, Inc., UK-based Turing SMI, Green Suites International, Assemble Connect, Inc. and Nigeria-based Hyperia), where an all-in-one solution with ERP like NetSuite makes sense. NetSuite has not disclosed the number of subscribers gained from Salesforce.com or much about its financials and market share…
Stay tuned for coverage of the panel…
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
