Well put TD, always the voice of reason. I think you dissected his argument pretty well.
Just a couple of observations that still worry me a little. I would say that there is a shift toward the middle-market, or more precisely the middle-market is ramping up in a big way, while the Fortune 500 deals....Sebl's sweetspot.....have naturally slowed from their torrid pace the past couple of years (at least from what I hear). They're still out there of course and Sebl will continue to dominate and sell into their install base since they have very little competition on the high end. But the middle market seems to be a better market now, combined with the fact that many of the larger companies are still moving ahead with faster to implement departmental systems, and you can see that SalesLogix is well-positioned. BTW, Saleslogix has positioned themselves in the middle-market as a way to enter the market without appearing to go head-on into Sebl, as did Vntv, but that doesn't mean they're not a robust product. In most ways it's a fresher architecture than Sebl, as Sebl is starting to display some symptoms of legacy code. While Sebl doesn't have much competition on the high-end, SalesLogix only has Pivotal and Onyx. I'm also hearing about Sebl chasing small deals (20 seats and less) with a direct sales force, which just makes me cringe.
The other thing is that their valuation does seem a little high, but you're a better judge on that than I.
That's about as negative as I can envision, and it's not that bad a picture. Because on the other hand we have a Big market, lots of growth, and room for several players for many years. Rose has too much of a zero sum mentality assuming that if Saleslogix is doing well, then Sebl must be losing share. Baloney. And, the internet will enhance Sebl and Slgx business more than it will threaten them. |
