LOS ANGELES -- Siebel Systems Inc. (SEBL), as expected, announced it will support Microsoft Corp.'s Internet strategy, as part of an expanded technology and marketing partnership between the software companies.
In a press release Monday, the companies said the alliance includes collaborative development, demand creation, global sales and integrated support for enterprise customers.
Siebel Systems' market-leading enterprise sales, marketing and service applications will be fully optimized for Microsoft .NET, and integrated product road maps will help ensure compatible product releases. Engineering teams for Siebel Systems, the top maker of sales-force automation software, and Microsoft will benchmark test, preoptimize and cross-certify Siebel applications with Microsoft platform software to maximize performance, scalability, reliability and security.
This is the first time the two companies are providing a single point of interaction for joint customers across sales, marketing and customer support.
Although Seibel plans to use Microsoft's .NET technology with its next generation of products, the company is stopping short of lining up in favor of Microsoft exclusively, the Wall Street Journal reported. The San Mateo, Calif., company also plans to support a rival Web standard, dubbed J2EE, which is based on the Java technology of Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW), Siebel's move marks the most significant endorsement of .NET yet from a major application-software vendor.
In some ways, the partnership is an unlikely one. Microsoft announced earlier this year it would start selling customer-relationship management software, or CRM, which is Siebel's principal market. |
