JCurve swaps chief due to health issues

NetSuite small business partner, JCurve Solutions, has changed its CEO one month before launching its first major cloud-based ERP product.

Stepping into the role is the company’s executive chairman, Graham Baillie, who said his predecessor, Daniel Perry, left due to health reasons and had taken six months leave.

“I've only been in this gig for two weeks,” Baillie said. “I've always been there in the background. He was the IT expert and I'm really going to miss him.

“I'm not from the industry. I'm not an IT person, I'm a commercial person. I've run businesses and developed them through people so I felt a bit lonely coming into this space with all its acronyms.”

But Baillie said his eight-person team had enough technical expertise as well as marketing and IT support from NetSuite to launch its principal cloud-based ERP and CRM product around May 15. The software and business services provider aims to target businesses with 10 seats or less.

“We're beta testing now and I want to upgrade the website so customers don't have to talk to us to find the information they need and get quotes” he said. “We have a big challenge. The market is well-catered for by inferior products people have accommodated. I would be kidding myself if I thought despite the quality of JCurve and its design around the need of small business that I would have people rushing to buy it.

“I have to ensure at this stage of our product's life that the beta testing is thorough and the marketing is solid because it's a big mountain we've got. But small businesses want this product because they've been starved of integrated ERP solutions.”

Baillie acknowledged past criticism of NetSuite in its dealing with resellers, especially in the wake of its takeover of Australian distie, NetReturn, but he said the vendor was a changed company and was moving its direct sales team out of the SMB space.

“They've made it very clear they don't want to be in this space and part of the arrangement was they'd transition all their customers that were below a certain level to ourselves and that's what we've been doing in the first 12 months,” he said. “I think they're got a different organisation now.”

David Ramli attended the annual partner and developer conference in San Francisco as a guest of NetSuite

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