The announcement last week that Oracle and NetSuite would jointly sell HCM and ERP to the midmarket derailed the inclusion of another item in the newsletter of June 28. But perhaps that plan suggests Oracle is moving to meet the problems that Wall Street says the software company is having with the cloud. And that came in the form of published reports that the company missed its financial estimates for two consecutive quarters because customers were shifting spending to web-based tools from competitors.

Online accounting vendor Xero has launched a conference for the Xero world in the United States. Xerocon San Francisco will be held September 4 and 5 at the Terra Gallery in, well, San Francisco.  In a prepared statement, Jamie Sutherland, president of Xero U.S., said the company has “ grown our ecosystem to over 200 add-on partners, certified major accounting firms to Gold & Silver partner status and more than doubled our global revenue and customer base year over year.”  

The show will have everything we’ve come to expect in a technology show oriented to accounting professionals – keynotes, CPE-eligible breakout sessions, and, I assume exhibits. There’s also The Big Event. In this case, it centers around the America’s Cup Finals because of the involvement of Xero’s home country in the sailing competition. The N.Z. entry is Emirates Team NZ and attendees can tour the teams base and  “”Watch the America's Cup Finals from our VIP luxury skybox” which appears to be at Four Embarcadero Center, not over the water. For a water view, Xero is promoting tickets on a docked viewing ship. There will probably be a good view of the NetSuite logo on the Oracle Team USA boat. It ought to make for interesting choices for Xero’s U.S. employees in who to cheer for.