NetSuite breaks into UK ASP market

US application service provider (ASP) NetSuite has signed three resellers as it targets the UK market with its hosted applications.

The company was forced to search for resellers in the UK after the collapse of its relationship with BT's now defunct Open Orchard.

Formerly known as NetLedger, NetSuite provides hosted business application software including customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning and the Oracle Small Business Suite.

It hopes to capitalise on the hosted small and medium-sized business (SMB) channel, a sector predicted to grow to $2.8bn by 2006 by analyst Aberdeen Group, and has added UK-specific compliance features such as VAT order management to its products.

NetSuite's UK resellers, Skyytek, BlueBridgeOne and International Business Strategies, have already signed four SMB customers between them.

Stephen Taglianetti, director of BlueBridgeOne, said: "We are hearing more and more interest for a product such as NetSuite which can provide greater functionality than traditional, stand-alone UK CRM and accounting software."

Entry-level prices for NetSuite's Oracle Small Business Suite start at £900 per year, with additional users costing £35 per month. NetSuite packages are £3,200 per year for two users, and £50 per month for each additional user.

"NetSuite offers more than just CRM to link up the front and back end on a web browser base with a fully intuitive user interface," commented Teresa Jones, Butler Group senior research analyst.

"My only reservation is that it might need a European data centre to guarantee intercontinental response times."