SAN JOSE: NetSuite has become the latest firm to confirm its intention to open a data centre in the UK in order to expand its footprint for data storage, following on from similar announcements from Salesforce and Oracle.

The firm’s chief executive Zach Nelson said NetSuite intends to open the location within the next 12 months and the UK is the most likely location, although he admitted other areas such as Amsterdam were still in consideration.

The company is likely to partner with a data centre provider, possibly Savvis, for the offering, noting that the outlay should be about $3m to get up and running.

The announcement comes after rival Salesforce announced its intention to open a UK data centre to make it easier for the firm to meet the needs of customers in Europe that have so far been wary of the cloud because of US data protection regulations.

However, Nelson said NetSuite had not been so affected by this issue, and the move was more about improving site and applicatation responsiveness.

“It’s great to have the systems closer to end user customers. The biggest value will be that the systems are closer to them so the applications and their website will perform faster,” Nelson said.

NetSuite is also looking to expand its presence into the German market, in a notable challenge to rival SAP in its own backyard, and is hoping its newly announced cloud tool for manufacturing will prove of interest.

“It’s a manufacturing country so it should work well but it’s also a technology country and we work well with tech companies, so it’ll be interesting,” Nelson said.

Earlier at the event Nelson had taunted SAP with barbs about whether the firm’s cloud offerings were relevant for businesses. SAP is currently hosting its own customer event, Sapphire, with firms like McLaren on hand to talk up its platforms, such as data analytics platform HANA.