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Technology Stocks : Vantive Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cis man who wrote (2297)	7/8/1998 9:49:00 AM
From: Invested	Respond to of 3033

From an enduser's perspective they are not even close. Siebel's UI feels like Microsoft Office (ok, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but you get the point), Vantive's UI screams "I STARTED LIFE AS A SUPPORT APPLICATION". Go see the products at the DCI show in San Jose in a couple of months. You'll see what I mean. Comment: Actually, Vantive's application syncs directly with MS products and shares information. I don't think that is an unsurmountable sales obstacle. In fact, for non-MS corporate environment, they are one of the only SFA solutions now that Aurum has moved to MS-centric environment. In fact, if you look in the beginning of the most recent issues of ComputerWorld (or Computer Week-I always confuse these rags names), you will see an ad where HP and MS congratulate Vantive on their ability to sync. Good support in the industry. I work in the industry and I can guarantee you that Vantive is showing up in every SFA opportunity. The company has a good reputation and their customers seem to regard them well. A few people mentioned some key things; sell high and sell to the VP of Sales. Those things are key. Selling to functionality is an easy way to lose the sale quickly. I think Vantive just needs to learn to sell into a totally different, much more competitive and aggressive market space. Siebel is a formidable competitor and is good. It's a different game than support. My guess. These guys may have stumbled, but they will learn and come back with a substantial presence in the market. Hell, even great companies such as HP or IBM have had "lower than expected" quarters.

To: cis man who wrote (2297)	7/8/1998 2:44:00 PM
From: Konehead	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3033

cis man, you are saying some things that ring really true. I'm not privvy to some of the info you provide, but it all makes a lot of sense. I agree with your assessment of UI & product useability. Some of it is question of flash, which Vantive apps lack compared to Siebel, but some of the interface problems do impinge upon useability. I do recall a Vantive western region rep saying last October that the product was not yet competitive for SFA. I disagree with some SI people, in that I think that it was a good judgment call for Luongo to get Vantive into the fastest-growing part of the front-office market. Maybe Vantive got too distracted, maybe not, but Vantive needs to have an integrated offering for this market in order to (a) satisfy customer needs and (b) keep revenue growth juiced up. (b) will take some time, until the Vantive SFA app gets more competitive. As for the product problems, I don't believe it's product management's fault at Vantive. Siebel is one of the rare companies in software apps where product directions and many significant product decisions are driven by product marketing. That is not true at Vantive, or at least it wasn't true in the past. And that's partly why Siebel has a much better looking product-- and curb appeal is something that is really necessary to get sales people attracted to the app.