With the release this month of its latest quote management and channel management automation package, Nsite Inc., brings more customization opportunities to the table, and more channel business on its tail.
Version 6.0 builds on Version 5.0's drag-and-drop applications builder, but adds the ability to recognize reusable objects and multifaceted applications in the hosted product, that will require VARs with vertical knowledge to construct.
Whereas Version 5.0's great advance was the simplified application builder, 6.0 delivers much richer functionality, but requires a deep knowledge of the business process to fully realize, said Rosie Hausler, Nsite's vice president of marketing.
"In the past, the bottleneck was in finding enough programmers to build applications," Hausler said.
"But with a platform that is drag-and-drop, the bottleneck is not how to build it, but what to build. People who are in consulting firms and are familiar with the enterprise applications these businesses need, someone with experience, becomes so much more valuable.
"We're really relying on the channel here," Hausler said. "We're relying on their relationship with the end-user and their experience in the business on the ground. We want people with Domain experience performing the application building."
Nsite executives expect the heavy channel influence to increase channel revenue from 15 percent to 50 percent of its total revenue, officials said. They also expect to add some 30 VARs to its current roster of 15.
Both products allow users, mostly SMBs (small and midsize businesses) between 100 and 1,500 seats, to build their own applications by dragging and dropping self-labeled boxes and buttons for different functions. Version 6.0 recognizes objects and multifaceted functions.
Nsite expects to build out the latest platform for about 18 months before it considers another update, Hausler said.
The on-demand software as a service model enables rapid product upgrades that can be released simultaneously to all users because the software is hosted on the Nsite Web site, Hausler said.
The software as a service model allowed Nsite to release 6.0 just two months after 5.0 and eight months after it released version 4.5, she said.
The channel management component combines pre- and post-sales activities into a single application that includes lead referral, deal registration, opportunity management, product configuration, price, quoting, order entry and special price request features.
The quote management component includes a whole range of features such as quote creation, product configuration, pricing, PDF conversion, reporting and analysis, and versioning, along with Web services integration with Salesforce.com and Siebel CRM OnDemand customer relationship management applications.
The pricing-quoting component additionally would also provide assurance to corporate officials concerned by Sarbanes-Oxley, which holds senior executives criminally responsible for the accuracy of their corporate financial statements.
Version 5.0 and 6.0 also use a Web services builder that based on AJAX, (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) that allows end-users to build an "ecosystem" where different users have different access and are able to participate in different functions, such as initiating a quote or an order, Hausler said.
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