SAN JOSE: The cloud software market is in a fighting mood at present, with NetSuite and SAP taking pot shots at one another across the US as they host their user conferences in the same week.

With SuiteWorld on the west coast, and Sapphire on the east in Orlando, SAP had a three-hour head start on its rivals, so it’s no wonder NetSuite chief Zach Nelson was keen to get his jabs in early, using his opening keynote to chide the German firm.

“SAP talks a lot about cloud and they’re having their user group conference at the same time as we are. And while we’ll spend a lot of time introducing a new product, NetSuite for manufacturing, SAP are talking about databases in the cloud,” he said.

“Talking with customers, not a single one asked us for databases in the cloud – they want new features and new app capabilities, but not databases. I think it’s a telling week to see what we’re delivering this week and what SAP are doing.”

Nelson has good reason to be upbeat about his firm’s offerings, as NetSuite basks in the glory of the first quarter to 2013, with revenue of $91.6m, a 32 percent increase on the same period in 2012.

Understandably, SAP hit back, with SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe claiming NetSuite is likely “intimidated” by the firm’s push to the cloud.

“There is a market for NetSuite in the public cloud suite for small companies, but there we have [Business] ByDesign. We haven’t talked about it today because it’s a special case for the small companies but ByDesign is doing quite well, winning over larger and larger companies and I can understand if NetSuite is feeling a little bit threatened,” he said.

Clearly, both firms are keen to make sure they pick up as many new customers from the push to the cloud as possible, and both rolled out headline customers to sing their praises.

NetSuite called on the likes of Qualcomm, extreme sports camera firm GoPro and Williams-Sonoma – the US equivalent of John Lewis, owning brands such as Pottery Barn. Meanwhile, SAP rolled out F1 racing team McLaren and German banking giant Deustche Bank.

Both firms are no doubt hoping their fighting talk will catch the eyes of other companies considering moving more of their IT estate to the cloud. With so many firms on this path, isn’t there enough cloud business to go around Is there the need for such hostility – can’t we all just get along

Garter analyst Chris Pang agreed, saying given the current state of the cloud market there is “more than enough to go around”.

“There’s more than enough opportunity for everybody to enjoy the riches. If you look at customer demographics out there, there is opportunity for replacement of large systems and mid-sized systems. Fundamentally there will be some vendor swapping but, if you net it all out, I’d say there’s room for everybody to grow in this market place,” he told V3.

He added: “Some will grow more than others, but it’s not a case of someone is going to drop out of the market because someone is going to eat all their lunch.”

As such, Pang said that NetSuite’s key challenge now is to execute on the products and strategy it has built out in recent years. “Two years ago it was all about getting systems integrators involved, people like Accenture, and last year it was all about SuiteCommerce. Now, it’s all about proving they are executing,” he said.

“They’re really trying to set themselves up to scale – this will take some time to accomplish but in terms of getting basic building blocks in place from product perspective, that’s coming together.”

One area where NetSuite is hoping to grow is the UK and Europe, as plans for a UK data centre and expansion into Germany – the home of SAP – demonstrate.

So, while there may be enough in the market to go around, it’s unlikely the barbs will die down any time soon.