NetSuite announced Jan. 26 that it had poached five Microsoft Business Solution partners to its software-as-a-service way of life as part of its Microsoft Switch program.

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The NetSuite program offers Microsoft Dynamics VARs selling products such as Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, and CRM a 35 percent margin, a 50 percent discount on NetSuite for internal use, and free sales training for up to five people if they switch to its hosted ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution.

The resellers—Altico Advisors, of Marlboro, Mass.; Roux Business Systems, of Baton Rouge, La.; VAR2, of Beaverton, Ore., a Solomon reseller; and Great Plains providers Premier Computing Technologies of Salt Lake City and U.K.-based Nolan Computers—said they chose NetSuite for its SAS capabilities.

"We see the on-demand model as the future of software," said Marcia Doron, Altico's director of marketing, in a statement. "We wanted to be a part of that and have it available for our prospects."

Because NetSuite is delivered as an on-demand service, there is no hardware to procure and no up-front license fee, and integration is simplified, company officials said. NetSuite's "real-time dashboard" is designed to provide an easy-to-use user interface for customers to view role-specific portal views of the application.

Microsoft has announced its own program to grab Sage resellers for its Dynamics family. VARs selling Peachtree will receive a $200-per-seat discount up to $1,000 on Great Plains, Navision and Solomon products. VARs selling MAS90, MAS200, MAS500 can receive a $500-per-seat discount, up to a maximum of $10,000, on Dynamics Professional version.