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NetReturn News 2007

2007 Press Releases

Opening the Floodgates: SaaS in OZ Australian

NetSuite releases NetSuite 2007.0 combining powerful mid-market capabilities with ease of use.

Sydney. — June 22, 2007 — NetSuite, Inc., the leading on-demand vendor of integrated business management application suites for small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, today launched NetSuite® 2007.0, introducing a myriad of new features that make automating complex operations and processes simpler for growing and mid-sized businesses.

NetSuite is distributed in Australia and New Zealand by NetReturn, Australia’s leading online services company.

With this new version, NetSuite continues its leadership in bringing the power of integrated enterprise software suites to mid-sized businesses without the complexity and significant expense associated with traditional solutions such as SAP.

While NetSuite 2007.0 encompasses hundreds of new features and enhancements, it focuses on three key functional areas to bring together the power required to run a mid-sized business, with the ease-of-use and management to make complex activities simple and low-cost:

Easy ERP – New NetSuite Assistants make the setup, data import and ongoing administration of complex tasks simpler. In addition, new NetSuite Assistants for complex functional ERP areas such as multi-dimensional product configuration and transactional form layout significantly improve productivity across the business.

NetSuite Global CRM and PRM – With NetSuite 2007.0, the management of complex global sales operations, including partner relationship management (PRM), becomes simpler. Orders, forecasts, quotas and commissions can now be managed on a per-country basis in local currency. In addition, the data from all countries can then be rolled-up into a single dashboard for a consolidated global view across the entire organisation.

SuiteAnalytics – While other solutions require the added cost and complexity of third-party data warehousing tools to gain insight into business data, NetSuite continues its leadership in real-time analytics by adding new business intelligence capabilities including detailed scorecards, and incorporation of Excel-like custom formulas within any NetSuite Dashboard and saved search.

Mid-market companies are following a similar business application transition to what Fortune 1000 and other leading enterprises have recently completed. That is, the move from cobbled-together, stand-alone software solutions to an integrated suite to manage core business operations such as sales, finance, service delivery, accounting, warehouse management and ecommerce.

As a SaaS pioneer, unlike some other on-demand software companies that chose to repeat the problems of the past and create stand-alone point product applications, NetSuite was founded with the vision of delivering a complete, single on-demand suite to specifically address the dynamic needs of growing and mid-sized businesses. These businesses also require powerful capabilities for global expansion, complex back-office/front-office business process management and overall business intelligence.

Ease-of-use is also paramount to their success since growing and mid-sized companies do not have the time or resources to wrestle with unwieldy legacy solutions from vendors such as SAP, Microsoft and Sage that require significant and expensive on-going maintenance and application integration.

Finally, growing businesses are dynamic and require solutions that are easily adaptable to their changing needs. NetSuite 2007.0 delivers powerful, flexible capabilities that have been designed to be usable by everyone within the organisation – from the field-sales representative, to the warehouse manager – and to address the global expansion, back-office management and business intelligence needs of mid-market businesses.

NetSuite 2007.0 will be rolled out to NetReturn’s Australian and New Zealand customers in July, after some local customisation has been added.

NetReturn is the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor of the NetSuite range of products, and Australia’s leading online service company.

Media Technology, NetReturn and NetSuite, a great partnership all around.

Media distribution company, the Media Technology Group Ltd have signed a three year deal with NetSuite distributor NetReturn.

Formed over 20 years ago, Media Technology Group Ltd has more than 100 staff situated in six local service offices covering: Auckland, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Wellington. The Media Technology, NetReturn deal was introduced by NetReturn part owner and channel partner, Commander Communications.

The deal is for thirty five (35) seats on NetSuite. Implementation is expected to take eight weeks and will involve migrating all the company’s data onto the new NetSuite ERP, CRM and eCommerce platform.

“This deal is pretty indicative of the way NetReturn, and quite possibly, online applications generally, are progressing in the Australasian business market. A good, solid company like Media Technology is introduced to NetReturn via one of our channel or referral partners and is happy to sign a long term deal,” said NetReturn chief executive officer, Andrew Birch.

“We have been feeling this for a while, but the tide has definitely turned for online applications in Australia. Most businesses now accept that the future will be online. The way ahead for many is to get in early and grow with us,” Birch added.

NetSuite is the worlds leading integrated online application with more than 5,000 customers worldwide. Combining accounting, ERP, CRM, eCommerce and inventory management into one online application that allows users to have a complete, real time control and visibility of the whole company at any particular moment.

NetSuite software can be purchased as a complete business suite or divided into modules, such as the standalone NetSuite CRM application. Other modules or suites include NetSuite ERP and NetSuite eCommerce.

NetSuite competes strongly against mid-market systems such as Microsoft Great Plains, SAP Business One, salesforce.com and Sage AccPac. NetSuite excels through offering complete front-office to back-office integration and by delivering lower total cost of ownership (TCO). As a hosted OnDemand system, NetSuite eliminates the traditional time and cost of building and maintaining IT systems.

NetReturn is the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor of the NetSuite range of products, and Australia’s leading online service company.

NetReturn signs another Medical giant to NetSuite

Philips Medical Systems Australasia Pty Ltd have signed with NetSuite distributor NetReturn to supply and implement NetSuite CRM for their channel and direct sales teams.

This follows on from the recent deal between iNova Pharmaceuticals (Australia) Pty Limited and NetReturn.

NetReturn again beat salesforce.com for the deal, with Philips Medical Systems choosing NetSuite because of better functionality of the NetSuite software. This includes simple areas such as duplicate management, approval processes and quoting.
NetSuite is the worlds leading integrated online application. Combining accounting, ERP, CRM, eCommerce and inventory management into one online application which allows users to have a complete, real time control and visibility of the whole company at any particular moment.

NetSuite business software can be purchased as a complete business suite or divided into modules, such as the standalone CRM application that Philips Medical Systems have licenced. Other modules or suites include NetSuite ERP and NetSuite eCommerce.
Another advantage of the NetSuite system is that companies can add modules to the application, without having to re-enter data or re-learn another application.

Philips Medical Systems is a division of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) one of the world’s biggest electronics companies and Europe’s largest, with 161,500 employees in over 60 countries and sales in 2004 of Eur 30.3 billion.

Active in over 60 businesses, and with more than 100,000 registered patents, Philips is currently number 1 in the global markets for lighting, electric shavers and DVD recorders. And number 2 in medical diagnostic imaging worldwide. Within the cyclical goods market, Dow Jones recently ranked Philips the global leader in sustainability.

Philips Medical Systems offers a robust portfolio of medical systems. Their product line includes best-in-class technologies in X-ray, ultrasound, magnetic resonance, computed tomography, nuclear medicine, PET, radiation oncology systems, patient monitoring, information management and resuscitation products.

NetReturn is the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor of NetSuite, and Australia’s leading online service company.

iNova signs to use NetSuite in offshore branches.

iNova Pharmaceuticals (Australia) Pty Limited have signed with NetSuite distributor NetReturn to supply and implement NetSuite in five of their regional branch offices.

The offices are located in Australia, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
NetSuite is the worlds leading integrated online application. Combining accounting, ERP, CRM, eCommerce and inventory management into one online application allows users to have a complete, real time control and visibility of the whole company at any particular moment.

NetSuite competes strongly against mid-market systems such as Microsoft Great Plains, SAP Business One and Sage AccPac. NetSuite excels through offering complete front-office to back-office integration and by delivering lower total cost of ownership (TCO). As a hosted OnDemand system, NetSuite eliminates the traditional time and cost of building and maintaining IT systems.
iNova will use NetSuite to as a simple to use and implement system to manage expenditure and accounting across the regions. iNova will go live with NetSuite at the start of the financial year, 1st July, 2007 after disabling the present 3M infrastructure on the 30th June, 2007.

iNova was formerly known as 3M Pharmaceuticals. iNova’s re-branding took place in April of this year, after Australian private equity firms Archer Capital and Ironbridge Capital acquired 3M’s pharmaceuticals business in the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions in November 2006.

iNova Pharmaceuticals develops and markets a range of over-the-counter and prescription medicines to Australasia, Asia-Pacific, South Africa and other international markets directly and also through other pharmaceutical companies and agents. These include medicines in the areas of skin cancer, heart conditions, weight loss, asthma and pain management.

Based in Sydney and currently employing around 200 people, iNova intends strengthening and growing its business in the Asia Pacific and South African regions under the leadership of CEO, Tony Martin, and his management team.

NetReturn is the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor of NetSuite, and Australia’s leading online service company.

NetReturn encourages new entrants to the integrated hosted application market

Isn’t it great having all these gorilla’s entering the on-demand market.

Is there a big player out there that hasn’t now thrown their hat into the ring? SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, the list goes on.
Perhaps NetSuite was onto something when the company starting developing an integrated online solution, what 8 years ago?
However what is interesting to us is the trouble these new entrants are having in actually producing a product. It seems the talk is cheap but the delivery much more complicated.

SAP announced then seemingly withdrew an offer of an integrated online application to go head to head with NetSuite. SAP has decided instead to concentrate on their online CRM product. At least until they can sort of some of the problems with the integrated suite.

Still the SAP offering is at least interesting. Part of the deal is a 100 seat minimum, which rules out most SME’s so SAP are really going after their own mySAP CRM customers. Which looks to me like an admission that the costs of integrating on-premise CRM and ERP, even from the same vendor, is too much and too complicated for most businesses.

But SAP are making a big mistake if they think hosted software is only a CRM market. Look, it works for us, they can try and play in enterprise in CRM, and we will look after the fastest growing segment of hosted software, ERP and integrated CRM.

However SAP aren’t the only huge software company having problems producing a decent integrated online application.
It seems Microsoft may be having a few problems of their own building a unified business application. Microsoft's famous "Project Green," which they pushed as their solution to an integrated, on-demand suite, looks to be no more, according to a number of press articles.

A CNET article states, "After earlier announcing plans to move to a single code base under an initiative known as Project Green, Microsoft now plans to maintain separate products for the foreseeable future..."

Even companies with a degree of online expertise have trouble producing a fully integrated front and back office application.

Way back in 2002, when NetSuite added rich CRM to NetSuite, Salesforce.com said they would add ERP to rival us in a new product called the "Salesforce.com Billing Edition." Salesforce.com's original shipment date of Q4 ‘02 quickly slipped to Q1 ‘03, and then to Q4 ‘03. Salesforce.com Billing is still yet to arrive.

Look we know how hard it is to build a NetSuite. It has taken NetSuite more than eight years of gradual development to get to the point where we are now.
We just one of the larger software companies would get their act together and build a decent online application to rival NetSuite. Then we would really see the market explode.

NetReturn is the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor of NetSuite, and Australia’s leading online service company.

2007 looking very strong for NetReturn

After a particularly successful 2006, NetReturn is poised to even further increase growth rates in 2007.

NetReturn is the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor of the worlds leading integrated online business application, NetSuite.
“2006 was a bumper year for NetReturn”, said NetReturn chief executive officer, Andrew Birch. “And 2007 is already shaping up to be much bigger and better still. The early indications are that the market is truly beginning to understand the benefits on a multi-tenanted, integrated online solution,” Birch added.

NetSuite competes strongly against mid-market systems such as Microsoft Great Plains, SAP Business One and Sage AccPac. NetSuite excels through offering complete front-office to back-office integration and by delivering lower total cost of ownership (TCO). As a hosted OnDemand system, NetSuite eliminates the traditional time and cost of building and maintaining IT systems.
Some of our recent wins include companies such as Ingram Micro, BMM, Access Providers, Bombora, Avoga, Total Risk Technology (TRT), ServiceWorx, Venga, RAK Bathware, RGB, Corum Group, and Phillips Medical among others.

“Our sales figures and client numbers are growing rapidly. Actually, a lot more than rapidly, with our client numbers virtually doubling every quarter. Alongside this we have received the backing of respected and trusted firms such as MYOB and Commander Communications to rapidly increase our sales channel and opportunities.”

“For us, getting recognition has been the hardest thing to achieve – we needed to establish our presence, without the big dollars some other players can bring to the market. What we have found is that once a prospect is aware of the NetSuite product, our conversion rate is very high,” Andrew Birch said.

All of which means that the oft touted (but as yet never sighted) integrated OnDemand suites designed to compete with NetSuite, from SAP, Microsoft and even Salesforce.com can only be a good thing for NetReturn.
“We are really looking forward to other companies bringing products into the segment.”

“NetReturn just don’t have the marketing dollars to spend educating the market themselves. We need the help of some deep pocketed competitors, to enlighten many SME’s for us. Because we know, once prospects know about us, we are a very good chance of getting the sale. So, yes, we are very confident about the future,” Birch added.

NetReturn is the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor of NetSuite, and Australia’s leading online service company.