NetLedger and Oracle Team Up

Small-biz ASP NetLedger Inc. and Oracle Corp. today announced a strategic partnership that will bring online accounting to small businesses. As a result of this partnership, NetLedger has become the first and the only accounting-based small business solution available as a direct link from Oracle.com.

“Oracle truly believes the Internet is reshaping big business, small business, all business,” said Evan Goldberg, founder and CEO of NetLedger Inc. “Partnering with Oracle attests to the credibility of our products and services and extends NetLedger to Oracle’s huge client base. More importantly, joining force with Oracle, NetLedger is leveling the playing field to bring big power to small business.”

Since Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is an initial investor and chairman of NetLedger’s board of directors, this partnership was a natural fit, Goldberg told ASP News. “I think both companies have gotten far along working by themselves, and this seemed like a good time and a natural progression,” he said.

But that’s not the only reason for this partnership, according to Mark Jarvis, senior VP and chief marketing officer, Oracle Corp. “NetLedger is a natural choice as the small business solution we’d offer through the Oracle.com site. NetLedger is living up to a vision both our companies share, of software delivered as services offered over the Internet,” Jarvis said. “NetLedger offers a robust level of service for small business that simply was not available before.”

This is the first step to a deeper integration between NetLedger’s platform and Oracle, with upcoming plans to offer access to Oracle services like Oracle Exchange directly through the NetLedger product, Goldberg said. “We’ve given the application a similar look and feel, setting the basis to more technical integration in the future.”

Starting with web-based accounting as a core, NetLedger’s platform offers capabilities including expense reporting, online customer ordering, online credit card processing, and employee, customer and supplier remote access. There are currently over 10,000 users on the NetLedger platform, counting both free and paid versions, Goldberg said.

NetLedger has modules to integrate services of dozens of partners, including OfficeMax, OneCore.com, Stamps.com, New England Business Service, CyberBills, BigStep.com, Innovative Merchant Solutions and AuctionWorks. NetLedger has been expanding its portfolio and chalking up big-name partners, inking deals with such partners as ADP, eBenefits and Yahoo!

Oracle has been busy building up its partner base as well, today launching its Authorized Implementation Partner scheme, its Wireless Partner Initiative launch earlier this month, and the addition to its iHost initiative of Authorized Application Providers this summer.

NetLedger is built from the ground up using an open, scalable Internet architecture. NetLedger users can run NetLedger on all major browsers and operating systems. Based on the Oracle 8i database, NetLedger delivers the power, reliability and security of enterprise-level accounting and business management solutions, combined with the ease of use of a small-business accounting and management package.