There are few better ways of measuring the impact of NetSuite in the market than the number of press and analysts attending SuiteWorld in San Francisco.  Officially, there were 80 which puts it in the same ballpark as the attendance from this estate as attended Microsoft’s Convergence confab. (I’m officially admitting analysts into the fourth estate to make this analogy fly.)  Read more...

Sean M. Hickey, who served as VP of sales for Deltek, died last week at his home in Melrose, Mass.  Hickey, 41 years old, joined Deltek in 1998 after that software vendor acquired Harper and Shuman where he was regional sales manager. Hickey took over the position vacated by Taylor Macdonald who left Deltek at the end of 2008.

With NetSuite having signed Accenture and RSM McGladrey in its channel, the logical thought was what other major players might its sign for its program. With the price of OneWorld up around $100,000 and now the addition of NetSuite Unlimited, the thought occurred that there ought to be a lot of consulting services around the upper end of the company’s product line. It wasn’t hard to surmise that other big fish might be enticed into the NetSuite pond. With the crowd flowing by, it was a little hard to spot but there were representatives of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte and KMPG present with badges bearing the name “Guest.”

Avalara continues to develop links to financial applications and Open Systems has become the latest vendor for whom the sales-and-use tax vendor has developed an integration with its AvaTax product. Avalara is starting with a link to Open System’s Traverse Accounting line and will follow with a connection to the company’s Open Systems Accounting Software. As with all the links developed for AvaTax, this means the sales-and-use tax engine can scour the universe for rate changes and handle calculations.