THESE GUYS ARE IDIOTS. Amazing that CEO's of major company's have nothing better to do. It's enough to make me want to sell SEBL over this disgusting nonsense!!!
Tuesday August 10, 7:42 pm Eastern Time
Oracle and Siebel rivalry gets personal
By Duncan Martell
PALO ALTO, Calif,Aug 10 (Reuters) - Thomas Siebel, once one of Oracle Corp.(Nasdaq:ORCL - news) Chief Executive Larry Ellison's brightest rising stars, is now among the biggest thorns in Ellison's side.
Six years after Siebel founded software company Siebel Systems Inc., (Nasdaq:SEBL - news) the vitriol is flying between the two battle-hardened competitors.
Legal letters have been shuttling back and forth between Oracle's headquarters in Redwood Shores, Calif. and Siebel's in nearby San Mateo. Each company has accused the other of illegal marketing and making false claims.
Behind the personal feud is a struggle for the booming market for customer relationship management software, which helps companies manage and streamline sales leads, marketing, customer service, call center and sales force functions.
Siebel is No. 1 in the market, which should grow to $2.9 billion this year and to $16.8 billion in 2003, according to Boston-based AMR Research. Oracle is pushing hard to supplant its rival at the top of the heap.
Customer relationship management, or CRM, is the fastest growing part of the software industry for a compelling reason. Helped by the phenomenal growth of the Internet, businesses are able to automate vast swaths of their firms and tie together different computer systems and software programs.
Siebel has been hard at work since 1993. In its second quarter ended June 30, sales surged 83 percent to $164.4 million from a year ago. In Oracle's fiscal fourth quarter, ended May 31, it said sales of CRM software rose 138 percent to $44 million from the year-earlier period.
''Siebel has been tremendously successful,'' said analyst Steve Bonadio at Framingham, Mass.-based market researcher Hurwitz Group. ''They know what they're doing.''
Oracle surely knows what it would like to do.
With its own CRM offerings, Oracle will surpass Siebel ''by the end of this year,'' Ellison said in a recent interview. Already he claims Oracle is No. 2 after Siebel, having surpassed Clarify Inc. (Nasdaq:CLFY - news) and Vantive Corp (Nasdaq:VNTV - news).
Analysts say the claims are typical of Ellison, one of Silicon Valley's most outspoken CEOs and highly competitive in business and in his leisure time, where he is an avid sailor.
''Sometimes it's hard to parse the facts from the fiction, the marketing from the product,'' said one analyst who asked not be identified, when asked about Oracle's claims.
Siebel told Reuters in an interview, ''One of these CEOs is looking you straight in the eye and lying through their teeth. This is about (Oracle's) conviction that unless these guys are stopped quickly, they might be unstoppable.''
In June, Siebel's company struck out at what it considered false claims in Oracle ads. Siebel lawyers wrote a June 14 letter, hand-delivered to Ellison's office, that carried ''a formal demand that you and Oracle immediately cease and desist your unlawful campaign of false, deceptive and disparaging statements about Siebel Systems and its products.''
A few weeks later, Oracle lawyers shot back with their own letter, leveling the same accusations against Siebel and denying any wrongdoing.
''We've got more lawyers than they do programmers,'' Ellison told Reuters when asked about the dispute.
Siebel said the issue was now behind them.
''The fact of the matter is they stopped the mudslinging ads that were illegal,'' Siebel said.
Meanwhile, Oracle and Siebel are slugging it out in the CRM market, which Siebel said will surpass the enterprise resource planning software market in the next year to 18 months.
SAP AG, PeopleSoft Inc., Oracle and other makers of ERP software, which helps manage the back end of businesses such as payroll and manufacturing, have all seen sales growth slow because of the Y2K problem and market saturation.
This is another reason, analysts said, for Oracle's urgency in moving headlong into the CRM market. ''Oracle's marketing has gotten very aggressive recently,'' Bonadio said.
''A year and a half ago, Larry made the decision to invest heavily in CRM,'' said Mark Barrenechea, who is leading Oracle's CRM charge. ''It's taken us three years to build what we have now and our products are stronger than they've ever been.''
But whirling above the warring Oracle and Siebel sales forces, it appears the spat between the CEOs will continue.
''Who's got the bigger sailboat, that's what it comes down to,'' said an analyst who asked not be identified. ''I hate to say this, but it's an ego match.''
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