Software & Services Safari

Brian Sommer

Wedding Bells: NetSuite + OpenAir + QuickArrow

By Brian Sommer | July 22, 2009, 6:45pm PDT

Summary: When PSA (and SaaS) Got BIG! Today, NetSuite announced it is buying QuickArrow, an Austin, Texas based PSA (professional services automation) vendor. This $20 million deal will put QuickArrow with OpenAir, another PSA solution that NetSuite acquired a little over a year ago. Click here for the official release. NetSuite has been aggressively targeting service industries and [...]

When PSA (and SaaS) Got BIG!

Today, NetSuite announced it is buying QuickArrow, an Austin, Texas based PSA (professional services automation) vendor. This $20 million deal will put QuickArrow with OpenAir, another PSA solution that NetSuite acquired a little over a year ago. Click here for the official release.

NetSuite has been aggressively targeting service industries and has developed a number of solution capabilities beyond just the PSA set. Additionally, NetSuite has a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), a full set of financial applications and many other SaaS (Software as a Service) capabilities.

This deal brings NetSuite serious service industry street credibility. Combined, QuickArrow and OpenAir have 80,000 users and some of the largest service firms in the world as customers.

Deals like this should wake up those ossified, old-school ERP vendors who are still on the fence about their own SaaS offerings. Vendors like NetSuite are:

- growing organically (i.e., product line and revenue growth)
- continuing to innovate
- growing inorganically (via acquisitions)
- building impressive market share

Old-school ERP vendors should realize that continuous market share gains by SaaS vendors into old ERP accounts are going to start to hurt the old-school firms’ bottom lines. When SaaS vendors got the occasional CRM deal, it really didn’t hurt. Now, SaaS vendors are increasingly their:

- vertical industry penetration
- breadth of product line
- up market movement

The times, they are a changin’ and the old ERP vendors aren’t….

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Topics

Software-as-a-service, NetSuite Inc., OpenAir Inc., ERP, Software As A Service (SaaS), Managed Hosting, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Emerging Technologies, Enterprise Software, Software, Brian Sommer

Brian is currently CEO of TechVentive, a strategy consultancy serving technology providers and other firms. He is also a research analyst with Vital Analysis.

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Brian Sommer

I am co-owner of TechVentive, Inc. The company has been engaged on numerous consulting engagements, often for technology firms, service firms and litigators. As a general rule, I do not write about current clients of TechVentive. Should that occur, I will note this in blogs. Readers should assume that I have had client relationships with many ERP and other technology providers. Some of these relationships may be quite small and short-lived while others more significant. One of TechVentive's business units publishes research reports about technology providers. As a result, this business receives small amounts of revenues from a wide variety of software firms, software buyers and others when they purchase copies of reports. Some firms do secure reprint rights to these reports. None of these purchases, individually, represents a significant amount of total revenue for me and the nature of it is hard to predict where it will come from. I also provide some marketing strategy and/or market segmentation work for software firms as I have developed a unique database that segments the largest 4000+ technology buyers in the world. Many technology firms periodically engage me for unique views into this database for future marketing campaigns. I do not blog about these efforts and do not blog about client firms while they are active clients unless some pressing news story erupts. If that event occurs, I will indicate any perceived or real conflict of interest. Occasionally, I will develop unique intellectual property pieces for technology or service providers. If I should blog about a vendor with whom I have recently developed a special information product, I will note this in a blog to avoid any appearance, real or unintended, of bias. For the most part, I have no investments in technology firms. While I've been offered friends and family stock and other inducements in the past, I have steadfastly refused these. I used to be a partner with Andersen Consulting and had no ownership stake in the firm for many years. I frequently refer to this in my blogs and do not hide my prior association with the company. I did purchase a few shares of Accenture and Cognizant stock in late - 2008. I have sold some of those positions in late 2009. Readers should assume that most software conferences that I write about involved some measure of fees waived and/or travel reimbursement. I do not charge vendors to attend these events nor will I accept payment for same. I do get reimbursed for many speaking engagements. I generally note at the end of blogs whether the vendor reimbursed me for travel expenses. Generally, this includes airfare and hotel. I do not request, receive nor accept travel perks such as first class airfare.