It's not too hard for investors to spot major new trends developing -- such as the ongoing shift to cloud computing -- but what is much more difficult is discerning which companies stand to profit from a revolution.
From the market's perspective, an early leader in cloud-based business solutions has already emerged in salesforce.com
Like salesforce.com, Netsuite has been around more than a decade, working to wean customers away from an SAP
Deals and partnerships have been accelerating. Netsuite has already partnered with Google
In the services end, Netsuite just announced a strategic tie-up with Genpact
It was clear at Netsuite's partner conference that the company is early in the process of tapping developers and value-added service companies in evangelizing Netsuite's solution, so there is still much work to be done. But the potential market is huge, with many vertical applications for cloud-computing solutions still ripe for conversion.
In its most recent quarter, a record 295 new customers adopted Netsuite's solution, and more of these are larger enterprises that not only tend to have larger implementations of Netsuite, but also upgrade to more services and renew at a higher rate. As Netsuite works up-market, it becomes profitable, so while Netsuite's stock may not look attractive based upon an earnings-driven value, there's a lot of potential hidden in this cloud contender.