July 13th, 2007
NetBooks targeting small business with on demand suite
In his bio, Ridgely Evers notes that he has been the CEO of four Internet-related companies and that he conceived, designed, led the development, and drove the launch of Intuit’s QuickBooks small business accounting program. He is parlaying that experience into a new company, NetBooks, which is described as an on demand business management system similar to NetSuite but targeting only small businesses.
NetSuite, which is heading for an IPO this year, is focused on delivering a full on demand suite to small- and mid-sized companies, and in 2006 had revenue of $67 million, up from $36 million in 2005, and is on track toward $100 million this year.
As NetSuite has learned, selling a full suite of business applications is not as easy as focusing on CRM, as salesforce.com has done. Similarly, Intuit has been successful focusing on accounting for small business and integrating with others to add functionality in other areas.
However, millions of new small businesses–with less than 20 employees–sprout up every year, and it’s a big market opportunity, which is not lost on players such as Google or Microsoft either. On demand, software-as-a-service business applications are no longer a fringe approach, and we are gradually moving from the best-of-breed to the suite phase.
NetBooks is currently in stealth mode, with a launch planned for later this summer. It remains to be seen what the company can bring to the market that would differentiate it from a well capitalized NetSuite’s small business offering.
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.
