Ellison-Aligned NetSuite Attacks SAP

NetSuite - which, as it happens, is majority-owned by Larry Ellison who has just returned from a courtroom battle with SAP utterly victorious - is waving around an amusing little TCO comparison of its ERP cloud software suite against SAP's revivified Business ByDesign widgetry that suggests that ByDesign five-year costs run over $500,000 for only 10 users.

In case you don't get the point NetSuite writes on a blog that "By trying to make the same kind of money they made in the good old on-premise days with their new 'cloud' solutions, they're carrying their on-premise ERP bloated TCO habits over to the world of the cloud. They want to inflict the heinous on-premise costs of the last two decades on you, as you try and move your business forward into the next decade."

Very Ellison-style attack

It's a very Ellison-style attack and one should probably think of NetSuite as Larry's just-in-case side bet on the cloud. After all, IDC is forecasting cloud computing will grow six times faster than all software over the next few years.

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara