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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: areokat who wrote (50239)	2/7/2002 3:09:26 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Respond to of 54805

Kat, predictions that the Small-Medium size company market would be growing faster (35%?) If you look at the predictions about the CRM market in the past, you'd be less prone to take them seriously in the future. There's no question that Siebel's efforts in the mid-market have rewarded the company with comparatively nothing compared to the top-tier sector of the market. In the most recent quarterly conference call, management didn't even mention the mid-market revenue. Siebel's dot-com which was intended to increase revenue from the small companies didn't work well as a business unit. So it was spun off, hoping that it would be more effective as a small company capable of more quickly responding to the needs of the customers. That didn't work so they bought the company back. In the spirit of operating only business units that were cash-flow positive, it was shut down last year. All of that happened in the space of two years. Ironically, almost the exact same scenario took place when IBM bought front office software company, Software Artistry, beginning in early 1998. The primary difference is that Software Artistry was not limiting itself to the small-size companies. --Mike Buckley