NetBooks vs. Other Small Business Management

I've been looking a NetBooks (http://www.netbooks.com/index.html) for my all in one small business management.

I'd like to get some 1st hand info from other users.

The small family business I work for uses an old unix based software made in the 80's. We currently do not have an ecommerce site, but might. We do manufacture some of our products, and our vendor and customer list is in the low 1000's.

Netbooks seem to have the desire to actually be apart of the the small business market, yet offer the robust services of an enterprise solution.

I have yet to convince the owners to askew a bit from their old ways and move up to a more useful and productive management software. I believe this is mostly to fact that the entire business would reside on a server 'out there' somewhere.

I know they are pretty new and lack some ecommerce integration, but otherwise I'm quite impressed.

I'd stay away from it.
Maybe for very small-small businesses it's OK, but Medium size or larger businesses SHOULD NOT use any Internet based software because SOONER OR LATER it will cause money loss.

Tacoma,

Why not have them check out a fully-featured, pretty GUI-based, Unix-based accounting package? It's actually ERP, CRM, and Accounting all rolled into one, and it's intended for manufacturing companies. Best of all it's free.

It would definitely answer to their concern of being 'out there', as it's housed on your premesis like most other accounting apps.

http://www.xtuple.org

Cheers,
-Josh

Thanks for the tips. I'll check into xtuple right now.

What about interprise suite?

Even though we are an older established company we are still small, with less than 10 full time employee's.

It appears that Netbooks may have a pretty good setup. They need a few months to add and refine. I think they've got what it takes to get there.

Rayzak,

I don't know what you're talking about, but it seems like there's pretty solid evidence to the contrary. The internet can save large businesses quite a bit of money, actually.

Aaron

"Maybe for very small-small businesses it's OK, but Medium size or larger businesses SHOULD NOT use any Internet based software because SOONER OR LATER it will cause money loss."

I don't believe that this is fully logical. Very large corporations and small ones and all in between use web based applications. In fact, considering the depth and complexity of programming that goes behind todays web languages, most people are running web-based applications, whether they know it or not.

It is a model has worked very well for my company, and I see no evidence that it would cause money loss. The only scenario that would cause such losses would be if the web itself went down or became significantly disabled - in which case, a great deal of commerce as we now know it will grind to a nasty halt.

Here are a few of the things I would consider upfront when looking at a 100% online solution:

1. Startup Costs: Hardware costs are eliminated, but if regularly upgrade hardware anyway to keep your users running smoothly, it may not be as much of a savings as it appears to be initially, especially with continually decreasing prices.

2. Support: This is one of the most critical pieces as you want to make sure you're able to get help when you need it. Are they responsive and what methods of communcation are available to you and at what cost? This is truly the part that will make or break your experience.

3. How easy is data migration? Do they give you your data in a relational database like SQL Server so you can switch programs in the future if you want to, or is the data all blended together upon export, making it a much bigger job to try and switch programs later.

4. Is subscription pricing guaranteed for a certain period and if it does go up, are there any caps? We all understand inflation, but most businesses would not want to see a steep price increase every year.

Just my .02, HTH.

Very good. I believe that this is where NetSuite fails.

#2. Their support is sporadic. Send them an e-mail, and you better be ready to wait a good long time. Unless you buy their Premium support package.
#3. No. They can export tables, but nothing that is full-structured. This is where the grab you by the...which brings me to my next point:
#4. No. They do not guarantee pricing and in fact, they engage in some of the most notoriously dirty price games at the recommencement of the renewal term. Nearly every year, they've jacked us around and I've spoken with a handful of people and read other stories online that this is a consistent thing.

Just my $12k/year worth.

There are other factors to consider:

Can you link your data to other systems? Growing companies tend to need numerous software systems, and it's important to be able to share data among them. Can you do it in real-time, or do you have to download batches of data before you can use them?

Can you modify/customize the software? If so, do you have to depend on the vendor to do that, and what costs are involved? If you can't customize the system, be prepared to run your company exactly the way the vendor wants you to run it!

We've just released a white paper on this subject (SaaS/hosted software vs. traditional desktop solutions). I don't think I'm allowed to post a link to it here, but if you send me a private message I will be glad to send you a link to the report.

To people reading, Magneto briefly mentioned NetSuite (company that offers similar thing), but the original poster mentions NetBooks. Just in case someone read magneto's post and didn't catch that .

From NetBooks FAQ, their pricing is locked from whatever you sign up. The only way it'd change is if it goes down on their homepage, then they would give you the lower price (if it goes up on their homepage, you still keep your locked price). Startup costs wouldn't require any additional hardware (unless you don't have computers that can go online), their support is all in the USA and includes live online support (and apparently no hold times on the phone). You can export all your data in CSV (I don't know of any company that allows the exportation of all your data in a relationship database, that would reveal too much info to competition I'd think).

NetSuite although a much more polished product (as it should be since it's been around since 99) is definitely looking like a bunch of dopes considering their horrific indian support and completely unethical pricing hikes (mentioned in magneto's post), and no training (although a book for the first time in 8 years is coming soon apparently, although it was delayed since it's Dec. release to May now). Pretty much every customer feels like they were bait & switched on NetSuite's pricing. NetSuite also doesn't allow exportation of all your data in any which way (you'd have to manually do it with a number of reports I guess).

I don't know what I'm going to do about my company that is already on NetSuite (I actually love the product, but I dislike the company), but my other company will definitely be going to NetBooks.

Nate

Hello,

If anyone is interested, Valleywag has a great article on NetSuite here:

http://valleywag.com/357386/yahoo-re...ite-ceo-on-air

It's not too surprising, given their Oracle background.

Aaron

That's a great article? Am I missing something - I only see a one paragraph editorial synopsis of the 3 minute video clip.

Nate

I've been using Quick Book, Simple Start for my business. My brother in law recomended it above Net Books. It's my understanding that you can add on to the program with other quick book products as your business grows.

JK