Archive for the ‘Netsuite’ Category
Hightower Inc Winding Down?
Lots of speculation over what has happened — and is happening — at ERP VAR Hightower Inc of Skokie IL.
It’s been almost a week since reports surfaced that employees were sent home with their belongings in a box and told to await further word. Everyone involved in the company – and what I presume are negotiations over what to do with customers and intellectual property – have been silent.
Unlike seasonal businesses such as landscapers and house painters – consulting is not usually one where you can lay off crews of employees for large gaps of time.
In the consulting world appearing to disband your business prior to having a deal for someone to take over servicing the customers doesn’t exactly put you in a power position for negotiating any potential sale or transfer.
I don’t expect the sounds of silence to continue much longer. Either Hightower is going to need to announce something or Sage likely will do it for them.
This report from Bob Scott last night indicates New York based Net@Work may have a deal for the customer base although nothing officially has been announced as of yet,
SWK handling HighTower client and reseller support effective today bit.ly/GPYOZi
— Brian W Dunn (@brianwdunn) March 23, 2012
UPDATE: March 23, 2012 9:00AM ET – Hightower’s Blog Site has been updated to indicate that “Effective today, Friday March 23, 2012, SWK will be handling all HighTower client support, as well as supporting resellers of HighTower enhancements“.
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ERP VAR Hightower Inc Reportedly Closes For Undetermined Period of Time
A consultant who claims that one of his employee’s received a phone call from Hightower Inc reached out to me to say he had been told the support case they have pending with Skokie IL ERP consultants Hightower Inc. may take a little while to be resolved.
According to one of my 90 Minds members who spoke to their Hightower representative:
We had an open support case with them and got a call from our rep that they were shutting down
I have a message into Hightower executives. Calls today (3/20/12) to their phone line listed on the web site have gone unanswered. Update: As of 2:28 pm ET 3/20/12 the phone message is indicating that Hightower is experiencing a serious data interruption to voice and email.
Netsuite Continues to Gain – Touts Integration and ECommerce Wins
In a press release today Netsuite trumpets several key customer wins showcased during CEO Zach Nelson’s February 29, 2012 keynote address at ETail West 2012 Conference in Palm Desert CA.
The key wins listed:
- Serena & Lily
- GoPro
- InkJetSuperStore
- Ultimate Office
- GameWear
- Niner Bikes
This announcement is the first time I’ve awoken to a realization that SaaS products are providing an end-to-end solution (Accounting, Disribution, ECommerce, EDI) in a way that many in the on-premises world have concluded would be years away. I’ve seen the slide decks that claim to offer turnkey solutions but the full package seemed to be elusive.
This Isn’t A Hope and A Prayer: SaaS Takes Center Stage at ITA
The Fall Collaborative of the IT Alliance was held this past week (December 3-6, 2011) in Austin Texas. The closing session “The Cloud – SaaS Best Practices” moderated by Avalara’s Rob Johson and presented by a panel including Taylor Macdonald – VP Channel Sales Intacct, Jaqueline Tiso , President JMT Consulting and Craig West VP Channel Sales at Netsuite.
Record attendance of 260 technology members was announced. Most IT Alliance members provide mid-market ERP or related services. The conference is marketed as a collaborative and is heavy on member to member sharing of experiences.
One of the hottest topics at this year’s event was cloud computing. Each conference day spotlighted sessions on creating, adapting and how to change a VAR practice to market SaaS offerings which typically charge customers a lower initial price which means VARS have had to retool their thinking about how to market and provide SaaS services.
During last year’s ITA Fall 2010 collaborative I noted that most IT Alliance member VARS who had adopted SaaS as a business offering were in the early stages of ramping up and offering services. This meant there was not much live feedback about actual results of converting from an on premises to SaaS VAR.
This year’s conference was different and one session about SaaS business best practices featured a prominent Sage partner – Jackie Tiso of JMT Consulting - who is a 9 year Sage President’s Circle winner and one of their top Non-Profit VARs. Jackie and her firm have been providing a SaaS solution since October 2010. Here are some notable results that Jackie shared during her session.
Read the rest of this entry »
SaaS Consulting: It’s Almost Like A Menu Thing
ZD Net has an interesting article on Netsuite’s latest channel offer. Essentially it looks like they’ve extended and improved their “you keep all the money for the first year” offer for VARS.
What I found most interesting was actually buried mid-way through the story — and it was this quote from Craig West:
My sense from participating in extensive threads on this topic is that the VAR channel remains wary of SaaS/cloud solution selling. It requires a fundamentally different mindset to selling on-premise solutions where the raft of available add on services is extensive. Craig agreed with my assessment that the vast majority don’t ‘get it’ or remain reluctant to give up their ancillary service support deals: “I think what’s more interesting is this burgeoning whole cloud consultancy thing where they are building whole portfolios that are not just ERP or CRM but collaboration, email, security and telephony. It’s almost like a menu thing.”
I’ve said for a while that SaaS is coming. I don’t know how quickly our customers will demand it. For now it seems mostly to be companies who fit the SaaS model (need strong accounting, revenue recognition, professional services) and have many remote locations where there is true cost savings in using SaaS versus having multiple remote offices wired to a central server. Read the rest of this entry »
Ground Hog Day 2011: Will CPAS Be Any More Successful As SaaS VARS?
Bob Scott reported last night on his excellent newsletter service – Bob Scott’s Insights - that CPA firm Baker Tilly has joined Netsuite as a Value Added Reseller. That firm follows CPA firm Clifton Gunderson who joined the Intacct solution provider program this month as well.
It’s fitting that the announcement of Baker Tilly broke on Ground Hog Day 2011 because it seems as if we are suddenly starting to relive the very successful practice that former State of The Art CEO David Samuels introduced in 1985.
Under Samuels’ reign at State of The Art the company essentially signed up all CPA firms who had $500 and wanted to be a reseller. No specific training was required. If you could fog a mirror you were on board.
NetSuite Strives For Verticals – Reports Another Loss and Average Annual Per Customer Revenue of $38,000
Netsuite reported earnings yesterday (read the entire Netsuite earnings call transcript here).
San Mateo, California-based NetSuite reported a quarterly net loss of $6.5 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $4.5 million, or 7 cents.
Revenue at NetSuite rose 4 percent to $43 million which largely met analyst expectations.
Some interesting items from the call. Read the rest of this entry »
