In December UXC, an Australian technology company, acquired Tectura North America under its UXC Eclipse subsidiary. It was the first step in the dismemberment of the once worldwide America-based Microsoft VAR. In its report for the year ended June 30, UXC noted the deal added 180 staff from Tectura in the United States and Canada. That’s a major hike as that means there are 240 UXCers on this continent Revenue is expected to rise by about 46 percent to more than $64.2 million annually.

Nonprofit software vendor Blackbaud has introduced two cloud-based applications, Raiser’s Edge NXT and Financial Edge NXT. The Charleston, S.C.-based software publisher is apparently preparing its plans for transitioning from desktop to cloud products. In the NXT announcement, the company said it will continue to support the on-premise packages, The Raiser's Edge and The Financial Edge and has plans to enhancement them during the fall. These steps will be outlined at bbcon 2104, the annual conference for nonprofits.

At last month’s partner summit, Acumatica CEO Jon Roskill told the keynote audience that “NetSuite is the one company we worry about.” In a one-on-one interview later, he refined that as “The company we clearly need to be watching.”  Certainly, NetSuite is on Acumatica’s mind and there was a breakout session about competing with NetSuite. Roskill managed to softly backhand the rest of the market with “Who else is pushing really viable products in the cloud ERP space?” With NetSuite going upmarket, Acumatica estimates it runs into the competitor in about 20 percent of deals which they split 50/50.

A string of interviews I conducted about cloud computing in the last month produced major disagreement on one topic. And that was the virtue of best-of-breed when it comes to providing functions in the cloud. We all know best of breed, that is buying the best products from different companies and getting them to work together instead of buying one company’s integrated line. “Best of breed is where the market is going,” says Erik Asgeirsson, CEO of CPA.com (formerly known as CPA2Biz.com). Asgeirsson argues that the Apple iPad has been successful because of the wide range of apps available from parties not named Apple.