CRM vendor NetSuite (News - Alert) has announced the acquisition of OpenAir for an estimated $26 million. San Mateo-based NetSuite will assume about $5 million of restricted stock units to be held by Open Air employees, which will continue to vest through mid-2010.

 

NetSuite will establish an East Coast headquarters in OpenAir's Boston headquarters and OpenAir's 56 employees are expected to continue in their current roles upon close of the acquisition.

 

NetSuite officials said the acquisition of OpenAir, a vendor of on-demand project management software, will "accelerate development of its products specifically designed for services companies such as professional services, business and IT consulting, legal, accounting, and government contracting."

 

The merger is subject to customary closing conditions. Closing is anticipated for later this month.

 

Assuming that the OpenAir acquisition closes on schedule, NetSuite expects its revenue for the second quarter of 2008 to remain unchanged from the prior outlook of $36 million to $36.7 million.

 

Non-GAAP net loss for the second quarter of 2008 is expected to be between $800,000 and $1 million, which is within the company's previously stated outlook.

 

Last week NetSuite appointed Per Jakobsen as its new vice president of product management. NetSuite officials say Jakobsen is expected to spearhead the strategy, initiatives and operations of product management relating to NetSuite's accounting/ERP, CRM and e-commerce software suites, as well as lead the company's product management team.

 

Jakobsen was vice president of products strategy at Salesforce.com (News - Alert) from 2005 to 2008, where he headed the team responsible for designing and launching a new financial services CRM vertical. Prior to that, he was VP of services and operations at Ventaso.

 

Jakobsen spent 10 years at Oracle (News - Alert) in Denmark and the US.