Siebel deepens Office-CRM integration

Siebel Systems last week released an updated version of its Professional Edition, a lower-cost version of its CRM software aimed at small and midsize business users.

Siebel Professional Edition 7.8 deepens the software's connection to Microsoft's Office applications, adding integration with Microsoft's Sharepoint collaboration tools and allowing users to directly access Siebel contacts and appointments from Microsoft Outlook.

The new version also introduces integration with Siebel Contact OnDemand, Siebel's hosted software for call routing and other telephone communications infrastructure.

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Siebel Systems last week released an updated version of its Professional Edition, a lower-cost version of its CRM software aimed at small and midsize business users.

Siebel Professional Edition 7.8 deepens the software's connection to Microsoft's Office applications, adding integration with Microsoft's Sharepoint collaboration tools and allowing users to directly access Siebel contacts and appointments from Microsoft Outlook.

The new version also introduces integration with Siebel Contact OnDemand, Siebel's hosted software for call routing and other telephone communications infrastructure.

Siebel's Professional Edition debuted in early 2004 and now is used by several hundred organizations, according to Rob Reid, Siebel's SMB group vice president. The package includes Siebel's sales, service and marketing software, with other features available as add-on modules. Its price tag is $995 per user, about half the cost of Siebel's enterprise CRM software, which allows greater scalability.

Siebel's future product road map and pricing are somewhat uncertain now because of its pending acquisition by Oracle , expected to close early next year. Siebel CRM suite, including versions tailored for several vertical industries, such as manufacturing and distribution, telecom, life sciences, financial services and public sector, all were mentioned by Oracle as important products. Siebel's top customers reads like a who's who of high tech: IBM, HP, Microsoft, Cisco and Sun, as well as Deutsche Telecom, GM and Bank of America.

To maintain Siebel's top position, Oracle will have a sales team specifically focused on selling only the CRM product line. While it will continue to offer Oracle's own CRM software and the CRM product from PeopleSoft, Ellison made it clear that Siebel's software and its development and sales expertise will drive Oracle's growth in this market.

Reid doesn't anticipate major shake-ups for Siebel's Professional Edition, however.

"I can't speculate on what will happen, but I do not believe that we will be any different than we are now," Reid said.

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