We had the opportunity to attend Acumatica Summit, held in San Diego from January 29th and going till February 2nd 2017, in lovely San Diego. The event was well attended, with substantial growth of attendees and partners. [For the record – on the Mueller / Reed / Sommer (MRS) scale the conference was even “exceptionally well attended” as we all were there (see here). 

 
 
So take a look at my musings on the event here (if the video doesn’t show up, check here):

No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):
 
 
Want to read on? 
 
Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3:

Acumatica steams on – All signs for Acumatica are on growth. Customers, partners, employees, revenues, product etc. 80% YoY growth does not come easy for anyone. So, it is clear the vendor is sitting on something that works – which at the core is a finance centered ERP suite, that goes beyond the traditional SaaS package with several platform like capabilities (e.g. with APIs and platform capabilities). 

 
Holger Mueller Constellation Research Acumatica NextGenApps Future of Work
Demo Time at Acumatica Summit - race the CEO
Acumatica adds key automation area – Acumatica announced both Field Service and Commerce as new offerings. Both have been areas that larger competitors have made a focus in, it looks like Acumatica felt it had to respond, possibly in regards to NetSuite even attack. Good to see also the realization that HR matters, with a partnership with InfinityHR: Acumatica will add the InfinityHR payroll to its price list and demoed a REST based integration between the two vendors. 
 
Holger Mueller Constellation Research Acumatica NextGenApps Future of Work
 Acumatica Summit 2017 Keynote - in 1 Slide
Bi-Dimensional partner traction – Traditionally Acumatica has focused on having partners to take its products to market. The most important ones are the ones who OEM the product, and Acumatica has managed to double that number, though with a total of six still at a low level. The other dimension are technology partners, and Acumatica highlight its partnership with IaaS powerhouses AWS and Microsoft Azure. Acumatica goes beyond the ‘bare metal’ approach to IaaS – up-taking platform capabilities e.g. around Aurora (AWS) and Outlook (Microsoft). 
Holger Mueller Constellation Research Acumatica NextGenApps Future of Work
Acumatica Growth in 2016

MyPOV

A very good event for Acumatica, a vendor that is on a roll. We had little time at the event – but the participants are all energized by the vendor’s success. Anything that grows by over 50% a year – a number Acumatica has eclipsed consistently – creates its own energy force field, as seen at Acumatica Summit.

On the concern side, growth has to be managed and scale. It looks like under the hood Acumatica is doing the right things, but on the visible side, their user experience needs to be bolted to the 21st century. Timeless ‘Windows’ gray is very 20th century.

But overall it is clear Acumatica has something going in the SMB market. With the largest and longest term player in the market with NetSuite now being part of Oracle – Acumatica is ready to take advantage, should NetSuite show any signs of weakness. Stay tuned – we will be watching.

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).

 

 


Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.
 

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