During the largest conference in NetSuite’s decade-long history, chief executive Zach Nelson touted the company’s growth, partner strength and product enhancements – all attributed to the cloud.

Zach Nelson

Nelson claimed that over the past three years, NetSuite has experienced 80 percent growth, while competitors such as SAP, Sage and Microsoft declined over the same period. This, he said, was due to more companies wanting to move to the cloud and partners wanting to offer cloud-based solutions.

“Over the past year 40 percent of new business bookings came through our partners, a year ago it was only 32 percent,” said Nelson at the company’s first conference uniting global users and partners. “It’s amazing looking back we did $124,000 in revenue in Q1 2001. Now we are doing $53.4 million. This is the future of software, so if you are with us as a partner or a customer you are way ahead of the competition.”

Nelson continued by unveiling key partnership and product announcements. Notably, the company is signing RSM McGladrey as a value-added reseller and releasing NetSuite Unlimited, a new product that can accommodate unlimited amounts of users, storage space, apps, modules and subsidiaries. It will be available for around $1 million, which Nelson said was “more than worth it” for global businesses that need it.

“We know NetSuite Unlimited is not for everyone, but think about global companies,” he said. “If you don’t ever have to outgrow your software, what is that worth to you?”

As for the new partnership, Jon Caforio, national leader of technology services with McGladrey, joined Nelson on stage to briefly explain the decision to join the NetSuite partner network.

“When you are in the midmarket space, you are making a very serious decision [selecting business software],” said Caforio. “NetSuite is the first cloud partner that we have, and
in the midmarket space, flexibility of your product is what is expected. We can deliver that with NetSuite.”

RSM McGladrey’s technology services division also represents NetSuite competitor Microsoft Dynamics ERP products.

In another product announcement, Nelson highlighted a partnership with enterprise social networking service Yammer for the release of SuiteSocial, a new product that will allow NetSuite users to collaborate and share feedback on projects and records.