SuiteWorld 2015: NetSuite Ditches AWS For Microsoft Azure

NetSuite has partnered up with Microsoft with a deal that sees the ERP provider dump Amazon Web Services and start using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. NetSuite also announced tighter integration between its ERP services and Microsoft’s Office 365.

Calling the partnership a ‘cloud alliance’, NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson said: “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.”

Change

Nelson announced the partnership on stage at the annual NetSuite conference, SuiteWorld, in San Jose, California. He opened his keynote by highlighting the amount of change he’s seeing in technology this year. Nelson said: “You wake up and see a new product and think ‘wow’, why didn’t I think of that? This event is all about change and how to manage that change. You’ll see a lot of change from NetSuite at this event.”

NetSuite said that by the end of 2015, NetSuite will migrate from AWS and on-premise deployments to Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform.

The company said: “NetSuite will migrate from AWS…and take full advantage of the capabilities of Azure for testing and for developers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and customers to build new software applications and integrations that leverage NetSuite’s cloud business management suite and the powerful storage and compute capabilities of Azure offering businesses the significant advantages that are becoming synonymous with world-class cloud computing — efficiency and flexibility, large productivity gains and dramatic IT cost reduction.”

“Azure and Office 365 are completely complimentary to NetSuite,” said Nelson.

“Azure is a big piece of news. We don’t have a general purpose platform. The Azure relationship for us is really important. What you’ll see happen fairly quickly…we’re going to get inside of what’s going on in Azure to help our developers. The fruit of that begins now. Our partners can still develop on AWS, but the relationship we currently have with Microsoft will yield benefits that can’t be quantified today.”

The deal also sees the CRM provider cosy up with Office 365. For example, NetSuite said that through integration with Excel, customers will be able to connect the company’s data to Excel and Power BI for Office 365. NetSuite will also migrate its entire employee base to Office 365.

Nelson said that when Satya Nadella stepped up to lead Microsoft, he saw a “sea change” in the company and its willingness to partner.

“Microsoft has a number of projects in a host of areas,” said Nelson. “We’re going to find great ways to partner and bring benefits to you.”

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