By Sam Diaz
Tuesday, May 05 2009 11:42 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/business/0,39044229,62053776,00.htm

NetSuite, which makes Web-based business software, reported a first quarter net loss of US$3.7 million, or US$0.06 per share, on sales of US$41.6 million, a 22 percent increase over the year-ago quarter. Excluding items, the company reported a first quarter profit of US$1 million, or US$0.02 per share. Wall Street analysts had been expecting a break-even quarter.

The company reported a net loss of US$2 million, or US$0.03 per share, for the year-ago quarter. Excluding items, the year-ago quarter saw a net loss of US$420,000, or US$0.01 per share.

In a statement, company CEO Zach Nelson said:

We delivered results that not only met our goals, but also indicate that NetSuite continues to take market share and execute on our strategic initiatives of moving up market and extending the NetSuite platform. In particular, our growth of non-GAAP profitability from the prior quarter was impressive.

Last month, the company announced a set of connectors from third party developers that will hook up its enterprise planning software suite with Salesforce.com’s CRM apps. The idea is to allow Salesforce.com customers to integrate NetSuite applications into their arsenal of software as a service applications.

In a post last month, Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet, Larry Dignan, wrote about the announcement:

For NetSuite, the connection to Salesforce.com just makes sense. For starters, Salesforce is much larger in terms of annual revenue and has a larger installed base. If NetSuite can tap into an already SaaS-savvy audience it can add more customers.

Shares of NetSuite were up not quite three percent in regular trading, closing at US$14.38. Shares slipped slightly in after-hours trading.

This article was first published as a blog post on ZDNet.