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Dell and NetSuite are partnering in a services deal that could prove a boon for both vendors that are looking to extend their presence deeper into the enterprise.
Through the partnership, announced Feb. 25, the two companies will create a complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that will span from the customers’ data centers to the cloud and enable enterprise executives to grow or replace their current ERP systems, according to officials with Dell and NetSuite.
The alliance with NetSuite will give Dell much-needed services and software it can sell as it looks to grow its enterprise capabilities and reduce its reliance on the contracting PC market. For NetSuite, the deal will mean access to Dell’s larger enterprise customers for a vendor that has seen most of its success with small and midsize businesses.
This is a major “two-tier opportunity” for Dell and NetSuite to reach new customers in the upper end of the midmarket or major divisions in large enterprises “that want to do a more nimble and lightweight enterprise ERP with NetSuite,” Craig West, NetSuite’s vice president of channel sales, told eWEEK.
The partnership is an important achievement because Dell’s services organization is “a trusted adviser to millions of customers that could become NetSuite customers,” West said.
NetSuite, through its OneWorld ERP solution, gives businesses the option of either entirely replacing their older systems with a single cloud solution or continuing to use their on-premises environments while moving some of their ERP business to the cloud in a two-tier model, according to officials.
Dell over the past several years has spent billions of dollars to buy more than two-dozen companies to build out its enterprise capabilities in such areas as storage, networking, software, services and the cloud. CEO Michael Dell and financial backer Silver Lake Partners bought the company for almost $25 billion last year and took it private in hopes of accelerating its transformation into an enterprise IT solutions and services provider.
NetSuite, which counts Oracle CEO Larry Ellison as a key investor, is another step in that effort, enabling Dell to offer a solid cloud-based ERP product that it can sell into businesses. Given NetSuite’s history as an early software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP software vendor, the partnership also bulks up Dell’s cloud capabilities.
“The collaboration with NetSuite can help customers deploy a world-class cloud ERP solution that is proven to support agile business processes,” Suresh Vaswani, president of Dell Services, said in a statement. “It strengthens Dell’s commitment to provide customers with pre-configured industry solutions, accelerators, and real-time insights to help fast-track their cloud transformation.”
Company officials highlighted the relationship Dell already has with NetSuite via Dell Boomi, a cloud integration solution that NetSuite customers already can leverage to help link on-premises infrastructures with their cloud environments. Dell offers the Boomi AtomSphere app through NetSuite’s SuiteApp site, giving customers access to pre-built connectors for either NetSuite-to-the-cloud and NetSuite-to-on-premises applications without the need for appliances, software or coding, officials with the company said.
Dell also offers industry-specific cloud solutions that are powered by NetSuite’s SuiteCloud developer network. Dell officials said NetSuite also will benefit from their company’s strong expertise in such sectors as health care, financial services, retail, manufacturing and e-commerce.