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To: Percival 917 who wrote (4355)	7/28/1999 8:07:00 PM
From: DownSouth	Respond to of 54805

Mike, WRT CRM and ERP interface/integration, as CRM becomes an appealing market for the ERP guys (ORCL, SAP, PSFT, etc.) they will go after it. Their strategy will be that their new CRM is integrated with ERP. OR the ERP guys will seek out the main CRM player and finance a "certified" interface to their ERP, in order to leverage the CRM customer as an ERP prospect. Whether competitors or customers cause it to happen, the market will put CRM vendors under pressure to integrate with ERP. The CRM boys will be under pressure to offer the service of integrating with ERP. They must chose to either make each integration a "one off", develop an "off the shelf" interface for each ERP solution, or provide implementation partners with enough informatin to allow them to do the interface. CRM vendors will probably be under the mistaken impression that they can develope "a PeopleSoft interface" and "an Oracle interface" that every customer can use "off the shelf". What they will learn is that every customer's implementation of ERP is quirky and a generalized one-size-fits-all interface will be problematic.

To: Percival 917 who wrote (4355)	7/29/1999 11:30:00 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Joel, DownSouth (and others), DownSouth gave a great response to your questions about Siebel. I'd like to add my thoughts to it. Currently, the essence of the marketplace is that customers will have two choices. They can select an ERP's CRM product to ensure all the benefits of a one-source vendor for back- and front-office solutions with the compromise being that funtionality is sacrificed in the front-office modules. Or they can go with Siebel or one of the many independent specialists that offer about a two-year lead on robust functionality with the compromise being that integrating with a different vendor's back-office functions is a hassle. Some will go with the big boys (the ERP players) and some will go with the independents. The market is going to be huge and in the forseeable future is growing at more than 50% per year. There's plenty of room for the specialists and the ERP players to make good money in the front office space. The other issue DownSouth correctly raises is the integration software that links the back office with the front office. There are independent EAI companies (CrossWorlds and Neon Software) offering front- and back-office integration software. The ERP players are offering their own integration software. As DownSouth mentioned, front office players are also offering their integration software. I don't know how much any of the above solutions need to be customized to be effectively deployed, but one would hope that, as an example, Siebel's integration software for SAP's R/3 platform requires less customization than starting from scratch. To change the subject a little, did you notice that Clarify's CEO says his company will grow at a faster rate than CRM's growth? Interesting. Time will tell. --Mike Buckley P. S. It took 15 minutes before I gave up trying to post the above message on the new SI board last night. I didn't get to 95% of the stuff I wanted to read last night because of SI's problems with its servers. ARRRRRRRRGH.