talk is cheap.
benioff aka duke of url?
-----
Published Monday, June 21, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
Oracle VP, Siebel may be competing to net salesmen
The ideas behind the companies are strikingly similar.
BY CHRIS NOLAN
Mercury News Staff Writer
LOOKS like the rivalry between Oracle Corp. and one of its former executives, Tom Siebel, has a new outlet: the business of getting salespeople to use the Internet.
In wake of talk that Sales.com will be spun out of Siebel Systems Inc. -- the enterprise software company that Tom Siebel started after he left Oracle -- there's word that Oracle senior VP Marc Benioff may be striking out on his own to form Salesforce.com.
The ideas behind the two companies are strikingly similar. Both hope to encourage salespeople to use the Internet to do their jobs. It's not clear how they will do this, but in its current incarnation Siebel's Sales.com offers travel tips, news about client companies and other sorts of assistance for the salesman in the field.
Benioff has long been close to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison but says he is not an investor in the start-up. ''None of this is done,'' Benioff said of the venture. ''We're right in the middle of a bunch of things.''
But its scope, at least, seems pretty well thought out. A brief look at the Internet domain names that Benioff and Salesforce.com have registered brings up a long list -- supportforce.com, companyforce.com, financialforce.com -- that gives an indication of the start-up's range.
And there's one that hints whose business they might be after: Seebull.com.
Coincidence? Benioff is coy. ''I have registered a ton of names,'' he said. |
