Microsoft teams with NetSuite on cloud ERP

Microsoft has announced an alliance with historic ERP rival NetSuite to develop joint cloud ERP products and services.

Under the collaboration the companies will develop products that connect NetSuite’s cloud ERP to Windows, Office 365 and Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

As part of the partnership, announced yesterday at NetSuite’s annual SuiteWorld conference in Silicon Valley, the companies are offering an integration between NetSuite and Azure Active Directory that enables single sign-on for customers of both services.

Cloud-to-cloud integrations between NetSuite and Office 365 offering access to both suites from a single interface will be developed in the coming months.

NetSuite meanwhile plans to migrate from Amazon Web Services to the Azure cloud as its preferred cloud platform by the end of the year.

NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson said the time is right for a tie-up with Microsoft. “We’re at the ‘end of the beginning’ of the cloud, in that the cloud business model that NetSuite pioneered in 1998 is becoming the de facto standard for how fast-growth businesses are run,” he said.

“We’re thrilled to work with Microsoft to deliver a fluid cloud environment across the key NetSuite and Microsoft applications.”

Despite the collaboration, Microsoft and NetSuite will remain competitors in some aspects of the ERP market.

Nelson said NetSuite now has a corporate customer base spanning around 24,000 companies and subsidiaries worldwide. The company was founded in 1998 and conducted an IPO in 2007.

Image courtesy of Flazingo Photos under CC