NetSuite Challenges Salesforce’s Chatter, Signs Groupon Deal
NetSuite Inc CEO Zach Nelson
Noah Berger/Bloomberg
NetSuite Inc Chief Executive Officer Zach Nelson.
NetSuite Inc Chief Executive Officer Zach Nelson. Photographer: Noah Berger/Bloomberg
NetSuite Inc. (N), a provider of online accounting programs, demonstrated new Twitter Inc.-inspired software today that brings the company into closer competition with Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM)
The software, called SuiteSocial, helps NetSuite users more easily discuss business matters such as orders and invoices, Chief Executive Officer Zach Nelson said. NetSuite developed the product, unveiled today at the company’s SuiteWorld conference in San Francisco, with the startup Yammer Inc.
“This makes it simple for you to consume information,” Nelson said in a televised interview on “Bloomberg West.” “There’s lots of activity that happens in a NetSuite record,” he said. “It would be nice, if you were interested in that, to follow that record like you would follow a human in Twitter.”
Nelson aims to capitalize on growth in demand for online tools that mirror Facebook Inc., Twitter and other social networks to help employees interact. SuiteSocial, due to be released about midyear, helps San Mateo, California-based NetSuite compete with Salesforce.com, which offers a social- networking feature called Chatter as part of its online customer-management software.
Groupon Accord
NetSuite also has signed a deal to supply its software to Groupon Inc., the top provider of online daily discounts. Groupon is running NetSuite’s OneWorld financial management software in five countries and plans to use it to manage operations in 26 within three months, Nelson said in a separate interview before his TV appearance.
NetSuite rose $1.71, or 5.1 percent, to $35.21 today in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have more than doubled in the past year.
Salesforce has said 80,000 companies use its Chatter social-networking program. The company announced plans on March 30 to pay about $340 million for Radian6 Technologies Inc., whose software lets companies keep abreast of discussions on the social Web.
NetSuite also is forging closer ties to Oracle Corp. (ORCL), whose CEO, Larry Ellison, owns the majority of its shares. NetSuite has purchased one of Oracle’s Exadata computer servers, which will let it run the Oracle databases that underpin its online software faster and more efficiently, Nelson said. Oracle Co- President Mark Hurd spoke at NetSuite’s conference today.
“Anything that allows us to run Oracle faster reduces our cost,” Nelson said.
Editors: Tom Giles, Stephen West
To contact the reporters on this story: Aaron Ricadela in San Francisco at aricadela@bloomberg.net; Cory Johnson in San Francisco at cjohnson114@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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