What do software developers, VARs, and managed services providers all have in common? They’re all trying to figure out how to make recurring revenue models work. NetSuite, a highly visible cloud ERP solution vendor, and cloud billing specialists Zuora, have announced a partnership designed to give the IT channel an answer. Here’s the scoop.

The NetSuite-Zuora partnership plans to develop billing, metering, and pricing tools for any subscription-based services, according to their press release, which includes travel services, digital content delivery, and textbooks. But the partnership’s most obvious application for VARs is to SaaS and cloud services.

In fact, NetSuite says it plans to extend Zuora’s existing Z-Billing capabilities to current customers, enabling them to expand subscription-based products and services and automatically bill and meter customers.

From a technical standpoint, the eventual goal is to integrate Zuora’s Z-Commerce platform with NetSuite’s native cloud billing engine to support one-time, recurring, usage and metering charges, and volume tier pricing, with capabilities to customize services for different market segments.

The VAR Guy knows that there’s a lot of channel anxiety around monetizing cloud services, even as the market has begun its slow-but-sure shift towards them. Some companies seem more surefooted in this arena than others, but the NetSuite/Zuora partnership looks like it’s going to try to level the cloud playing field a little bit – even if we know they’re not the first company to try it.

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