Redwood Shores, CA June 27, 2001 Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison has always struck me as the I've got bigger fish to fry -type of guy, but, apparently, he's going after the little guys these days, too.
In an effort to attract the small business market (typically less than 100 employees), Oracle today released a new suite of online services called the Oracle Small Business Suite. And while I'm sure Mr. Ellison would like to take full credit for the development of this new product, the Oracle Small Business Suite is actually an application developed and powered by software company, NetLedger. As of yesterday, Oracle and NetLedger reached a partnership agreement stating that the two companies would jointly offer the services suite under the new name of Oracle Small Business Suite.
This is a big win for NetLedger and NetLedger's customers," said Evan Goldberg, president and CEO of NetLedger Inc. Oracle shares with us the powerful idea that businesses can save time and money by using integrated suites to run their business. This new partnership will deliver these benefits to a wider audience of small businesses than NetLedger can reach alone. Ultimately, because small businesses and big businesses do business with each other, the partnership presents an unprecedented opportunity to create a platform for all businesses to streamline their operations using the Internet.
Regardless of who gets credit for the development of the product, the new suite is likely to attract some attention. The Oracle Small Business Suite is designed to help companies manage key business operations such as customer relationship management, orders, purchases, inventory and payroll.
While small businesses are looking to gain the same efficiencies as large business, traditional enterprise applications have been too expensive and complex to implement, said Mark Jarvis, chief marketing officer, Oracle Corp.. With the Oracle Small Business Suite, companies can now take advantage of an integrated suite of applications, without the traditional barriers to enterprise applications. The addition of NetLedger's online service to Oracle's online services business will allow Oracle to provide complete business systems to all businesses, from startups to the Fortune 500.
