NetSuite scoops Microsoft resellers

A strong reseller channel is a key success factor for selling enterprise systems to the small and midsize business market. As I've noted in the past, the population of such resellers is limited, and its not easy to build a reseller organization from scratch. The reseller has to make a significant investment in hiring experienced salespeople and implementation consultants, then they must be trained specifically in the vendor's product. Sales cycles are long, and implementation projects can be risky, stretching out collections.

So, the easiest way for a vendor to build the reseller channel is to steal resellers from another vendor. This has been going on for years.

According to the Channel Insider, the latest example is Netsuite, an ERP on-demand vendor that appears to have picked up five former resellers of Microsoft Dynamics (formerly, Microsoft Business Solutions, MBS). The five are Altico Advisors (Marlboro, MA), Roux Business Systems (Baton Rouge, LA), VAR2 (Beaverton, OR), Premier Computing Technologies (Salt Lake City, UT), and Nolan Computers (UK).

The need for resellers is so important, that NetSuite, like other vendors, offers incentives to jump ship.

The NetSuite program offers Microsoft Dynamics VARs selling products such as Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, and CRM a 35 percent margin, a 50 percent discount on NetSuite for internal use, and free sales training for up to five people if they switch to its hosted ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution.

Not that Microsoft isn't also trying to poach resellers from other vendors.

Microsoft has announced its own program to grab Sage resellers for its Dynamics family. VARs selling Peachtree will receive a $200-per-seat discount up to $1,000 on Great Plains, Navision and Solomon products. VARs selling MAS90, MAS200, MAS500 can receive a $500-per-seat discount, up to a maximum of $10,000, on Dynamics Professional version.

eWeek has the story.

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