An ERP Product Line in 18 months? NetSuite and Rootstock did it

Lessons any ERP provider should heed

The Power of Platform-as-a-Service

This week, NetSuite and Rootstock announced the availability of an all new ERP solution. The incredible aspect of it is that the solution was created in 18 months.

18 months

Last year, when I heard how quickly CODA (part of Agresso/Unit4) had created a financial solution with the Force.com (SaaS) architecture, I secretly hoped this would usher in a new era of rapidly built, powerful solutions to run in the SaaS (software as a service) world. Now, Rootstock has added another key proof point in the picture.

Rootstock worked with NetSuite over the last 18 months to build a new ERP solution. The product line includes NetSuite’s financial modules and Rootstock’s Shop Floor Control, Cost Control, Production Engineering, Materials Requirement Planning, Lot and Serial Control, Project Control, Manufacturing Inventory Control and a Multi-Site/Multi-Division modules. The Rootstock products were built with the NetSuite NS-BOS tools.

In a press release on the Rootstock site, we see a compelling reason for more software vendors, resellers and value-added players (e.g., systems integrators) to embrace platform-as-a-service (PaaS).

"By partnering with NetSuite, we were able to complete our application and bring it to market twice as fast and at half the cost than would otherwise have been possible," says Patrick Garrehy, CEO, Rootstock Software.

I’ve been a fan of the platform-as-a-service concept for some time. The ability of third parties to quickly build multi-tenant application suites is very attractive and it means that more businesses (i.e., smaller businesses) can get access to complete vertical solutions at low monthly rates. PaaS works as a great market equalizer as it provides choice. Are you a business executive who is tired of getting pummeled by major ERP vendors? Yes, PaaS solutions are new and relatively untried but their availability now means proof of market suitability is not far off.

Larger vendors should heed these developments. PaaS permits a window of new competitors to emerge. These vendors can initially take a chunk out of the SMB space and move upstream/up-market from there. I like competition as it fosters innovation and delivers choice. SMB business executives, who need complete vertical solutions, should also like PaaS. PaaS will likely deliver for them a lot of choices even in really narrow verticals like cemetery plot management, harbor management, etc.

As more data points come in re: PaaS, PaaS could become a real game changer in the application software world.