iCode Everest or Netsuite? - Looking for an "all-in-one" small business solution

[mutahman]

Noblenull

Interprise did not pass my test of being market ready either, but based on what was working and the fact that the platform was .net and open source, and the fact that ASPdotnetstorefront was an established and reliable software, we figured we could get a couple of our smaller sites up and running on the platform, work with it for a year while we improved the system and Interprise came out with updates.

When we tried to go live and there were issues, it seemed the issues were based on roadbumps between the cart and the system. They should be fixable, but now that ASPdotnetstorefront and Interprise are no longer "actively" working together (IE ASPdotnetstorefront no longer sells the I.S. version, and after speaking with Dan at ASP he confirmed they will no longer work on an I.S. version and the partnership is done) we are left here on an island, with no update/info from Interprise (despite me chasing them for 2 weeks now).

What I am extremely pissed about is the fact that Interprise has made NO mention of this to it's customers, they still promote on their site that they have "a cart" but don't clarify if it's the ASPdotnet cart OR if they acquired the code from ASPdotnet OR if it's new code. what probably aggrivates me most is Gary Harrison and the Interprise people at the top always struck me as leaning towards the shady side (talking more then delivering) and I expected that to change somewhat after Taylor Corp. bought them in 2008. BUT, this current issue with the cart and the way they are handling in (or not handling it) is a indication that as a management team, the people who are currently running Interprise are clowns. Have the balls to tell us that there is an issue, that the partnership is done but you are working toward a solution. Don't hide in the weeds, because not only does hiding in the weeds turn-off your customers, it gets them talking negatively on boards like this...where many others read and are influenced by the posts.

Now, let me tell you about my feelings on ASPdotnetstorefront. Dan did the right thing. I spoke with him on the phone, he explained the situation with me and agreed to refund me for the 3 carts we purchased. Because of this I am very willing to do business with them again, and WISH there was a back-end ERP system that tied into their ML cart. The way he handled this makes me want to do business with him again. The way Interprise is handling this, I want to see them dead.

Through all of this, I'm very happy I have Netsuite. They signed us up for another 3 years, honored their contract with us (there was a clause in our original contract that they could only increase their price by X&#37 and even though I wish their cart had more flexibility and access to the code, they still (IMO) provide an excellent product for a company that is running a business not just a web business, but a B2B and e-commerce business.

I hope that Netsuite finds a way to make their product more cost effective for the small business with multiple websites AND makes their cart more flexible/robust because after all this time I still believe they have the best solution in the market.

[JudithDolling]

This thread is informative. Thanks to you guys! These information can be used in home based business. Keep the useful information flowing. Thanks again!

[Lex87]

You could go to elance.com and look for a developer. The nice thing is you can put in your spending limit and interested parties will bid on the contract. It would probably end up being way cheaper than buying something pre-manufactured.I know there are Epos developers on the that site.

Just a thought!
Cheers
Lexi
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touch screens

[InfoSourcing]

Hey,

I thought of pitching in my view to this thread since I have been long associated with ERP and Small Business Computing, what is the current trend of ERP softwares, where are all the vendors and what should small & medium business look for?

Let me answer these questions by saying "One size doesn't fit all" neither "One software runs for all"

NetSuite - Best of all the ERP software and costliest of all too

Everest Software - With new acquisition the Company is heading in entirely new direction I guess south its a pretty good integrated software but with its new management and insane support prices they are not going to survive longer. I have been tracking their development and blogging abt it

SAP Business One - If you have sufficient budget then consider this else read on

Interprise Suite - It's good and bad depending on what features you want and who implements the solution, its moderate in pricing and features to run your business from backend, POS and eCommerce. We had few success with this product if you read my other posts on this forum or on my Interprise Suite blog

TradePoint360 - It used to be called Evolution and they are surfacing with new name after their merger with another company, so read more abt it on my TradePoint blog. It's the next best to Interprise in terms of integrated ERP for small and medium business.

Read more about ERP software comparison

Regards

[dlatzman]

As a small business "all in one" solution, you should consider Brightpearl. It has many of the functions of a traditional "ERP" but it is aligned with small businesses. It is a UK product but has just opened an office in the US. It is a really strong alternative to Netsuite for SMBs.

<i>[Personal contact information not allowed in posts]</I>.

Thanks!

[nicker]

mutahman - can you provide any updates on the implementation process? We are considering netsuite and I would be very interested in any feedback you can provide. Thanks to everyone else, this thread has provided more unbiased info than I have found anywhere else.

[SonicCubeMC2]

Hi guys,

I am not sure if this will help or not. I am from MerchantCompanion.com. If 90 percent of your business came from your website, you might want to consider our more cost effective solution. Our MC2 software is also an Order/Fulfillment/Inventory/CRM/Email Management package for small to medium e-commerce businesses. MC2 is designed for multi-user environment with enterprise-level departmental task management for more “visual” and logical processing flow. It is compatible with many shopping cart systems, so you are not limited to the shopping cart choices. As for the licensing, MC2 is per site, not per seat. Add additional stations as you need to streamline your business. For complete feature list, you can visit us at http://www.merchantcompanion.com. Thanks.

Let me know if there is anything I can help.

George
MerchantCompanion.com
626-820-0477

[computerguy]

Another alternative will be Interprise Suite from Interprise Solutions once it is released.

It uses some new .NET technology that allows it to run as a desktop application like Everest or as a Internet based application like Netsuite.

They have a free 3 user version and the unlimited user version starts at only $1,500.

http://www.interprisesuite.com/

[computerguy]

Another alternative will be Interprise Suite from Interprise Solutions once it is released.

It uses some new .NET technology that allows it to run as a desktop application like Everest or as a Internet based application like Netsuite.

They have a free 3 user version and the unlimited user version starts at only $1,500.

http://www.interprisesuite.com/

George - I was referring to Netsuite vs. Everest with my post. Not eCommerce solutions.

[SonicCubeMC2]

Hi computerguy,

Just a quick question. Can you import orders from shopping carts in Interprise Suite?
From the website, I can not find much about other shopping cart integration support.

I think the main difference between MC2 and Interprise Suite is that MC2 is focusing on small-to-medium "e-commerce" businesses and Interprise is more for wholesale/import/export businesses.

Best Regards,

George

[jenny.c]

Hi computerguy,

Just a quick question. Can you import orders from shopping carts in Interprise Suite?
From the website, I can not find much about other shopping cart integration support.

I think the main difference between MC2 and Interprise Suite is that MC2 is focusing on small-to-medium "e-commerce" businesses and Interprise is more for wholesale/import/export businesses.

Best Regards,

George

Dear George,


Thank you for your question.


Interprise Suite is designed to be a complete solution that eliminates the need to use a multitude of applications to complete the day to day tasks of business. As such we plan on developing our own shopping cart solution, Interprise Cart, to fulfill the ecommerce needs of our users. This will eliminate the complexities involved in setting up and maintaining communications between two applications that were not designed to work together. Our customers want solutions that will work with the least amount of expense and effort and the peace on mind that knowing that one company has the expertise to be able to meet their needs from start to finish.


Interprise Cart will be fully integrated with Interprise Suite offering a complete ecommerce solution. The inventory module of Interprise Suite already has the web specific fields in place and we include a very nice html editor so that users can fine tune the appearance of their inventory items on a “per item” basis if needed. The cart will be designed around .NET 2.0 user controls and design templates so that virtually any website design can be implemented. Source code will be provided with for a nominal charge. Implementation options are as follows.


Real-time

In this setup the website is fully connected to the company data. The company data can be hosted on your website (your office workers connect to the data via web services) or locally (You have a T1 or DSL connection in your office with a fixed IP). If you choose to host locally, Interprise Suite can be setup to host your pictures at a different location with a higher speed internet connection. This will allow you to serve the html part of your pages locally – and the images from your ISP. This will allow you to scale quite a bit on even a DSL line.


Partially disconnected

In this setup your website is located at your ISP while your corporate data is located elsewhere. As web users are browsing your website they are running off the local database at your ISP. When web user begin a process that requires real-time data such as entering a new user/order, updating a customer record, etc. then Interprise Cart will connected back to the main system via xml web services.


Fully disconnected

This is like partially disconnected except that all transactions are done outside of the main company’s database and is updated periodically via xml web services.


For complete details please visit our website at http://www.interprisesuite.com/InterpriseCart/Index.asp

Thanks again

Jenny

[computerguy]

Hi computerguy,

Just a quick question. Can you import orders from shopping carts in Interprise Suite?
From the website, I can not find much about other shopping cart integration support.

I think the main difference between MC2 and Interprise Suite is that MC2 is focusing on small-to-medium "e-commerce" businesses and Interprise is more for wholesale/import/export businesses.

Best Regards,

George

Hi Sonic!

I would agree in your comparison. Your application looks great for a ecommerce business. One of the best. However our companies primary business is in distribution so we need something that has alot of B2B features - like icode and everest. ecommerce is a low priority for us.

The thing that I like about Interprise Suite is that it looks like it takes the best from netsuite and icode (which are two applications i have been considering) so anyone looking at those two applications may want to check it out.

[jelessy]

Bryan,

I set my entire business up with Yahoo. You can do it for less than 5,000 as long as you don't get carried away with photography and a lot of useless pages.

Fred

[SonicCubeMC2]

Thank you Jenny and Computerguy. I actually told one of my importer friend to try Interprise since our Merchant Companion 2 does not manage shipment schedules and import/export related functions at this moment.

One thing I do not like about complete internet based solutions is that you are giving too much trust on your internet connection. Since most offices will not have business-class T1 service, the best they will get is probably business DSL which is not 100% "Solid" in real world. You are taking the risk that if the internet connection from your office somehow got interrupted, you will not be able to run your business at all. Another concern I have is that if they "quit", you would lost everything. You might have the backup data, but you will have to find another solution that will "take" the data. We see many businesses still run ancient DOS based applications, why, because their developers had long gone, so no more new versions for them. Luckily, they still have the software and can still perform their daily routines. If they were using internet or service based solutions, they will have nothing to run their businesses in this scenario. A business succeeds on its plan A, but a business survives on its plan B. We always have to prepare for the worst case imaginable.

Best Regards,

George

[Skyytek]

Thank you Jenny and Computerguy. I actually told one of my importer friend to try Interprise since our Merchant Companion 2 does not manage shipment schedules and import/export related functions at this moment.

One thing I do not like about complete internet based solutions is that you are giving too much trust on your internet connection. Since most offices will not have business-class T1 service, the best they will get is probably business DSL which is not 100% "Solid" in real world. You are taking the risk that if the internet connection from your office somehow got interrupted, you will not be able to run your business at all. Another concern I have is that if they "quit", you would lost everything. You might have the backup data, but you will have to find another solution that will "take" the data. We see many businesses still run ancient DOS based applications, why, because their developers had long gone, so no more new versions for them. Luckily, they still have the software and can still perform their daily routines. If they were using internet or service based solutions, they will have nothing to run their businesses in this scenario. A business succeeds on its plan A, but a business survives on its plan B. We always have to prepare for the worst case imaginable.

Best Regards,

George

George,

The disaster recovery point is something to consider. It is important for all companies to have a disaster recovery plan. However, the loss of internet connection worry is a bit of a red herring.

Internet connections have excellent uptime track records. It is much more likely that the drive on your a server in your office goes down or that you get a virus or worm that lose your internet connection. Moreover, web-based applications such as Netsuite can be accessed from anywhere. So here is your disaster recovery plan in the incredibly unlikely event that your Internet connection is down:

(a) Have a coffee. It will be back up in a few minutes.
(b) Go anywhere that has an internet connection and keep doing business.
(c) To help with (b) use a virtual PBX such as SkyyCall from Skyytek and your customers will never know that you aren't at the office.

Over 8,000 companies are using Netsuite as a fully hosted net apps. No problems. Servers, back-ups and data security are taken care of as a matter of course.

Mark Walker
Skyytek Canada
www.skyytek.com