Hovering underneath the eBay/Skype radar is Oracle’s purchase of CRM software maker Siebel Systems for $3.61 billion. This is Oracle’s second major purchase of a business software provider, the first one being PeopleSoft, which Oracle bought for $10.5 billion this year.
The purchase puts Oracle at the top spot in the CRM applications space and gives it considerable ammo in its battles with SAP and Salesforce.com in the corporate software and Internet-based CRM space respectively.
5 comments
Peoplesoft, then IFlex, then Siebel. The last two being direct competitors of the company I work for, tsk tsk tsk… looks like we’re in deep trouble.
naiinis ako, kasi my company declined oracles offer para sa pagbuild ng database namin… ngayon, with the current company we are using, the CRM is costing as much as it would have cost if my company had gotten Oracle… and now, developers are programming workarounds that generate birdlike droppings in the code with our current RAD… I know most of the people in my IT team agree with me.
Oracle sells the database/business software and their partners do the integration work.
It’s sad that it’s becoming commonplace to see companies buying other companies of essentially different industries. An online auction business, buys an online payment service and then a VoIP company. It’s even sadder when companies manage to buy their competition. In the end, it’s usually not the best for the consumers. There’s really something wrong with the kind of capitalism we have in the world today.
Mergers and acquisitions are not really a bad thing. At least from the consumers point of view. Companies do M&A to consolidate their position in the market and to promote their product (and in some case, kill/absorb the competitor). And what do end-consumers get, better quality (i hope) and perhaps, better pricing package. Companies that buy out other companies will never grow larger than the current size of MS. There’s always the Big Brothers (US Justice Dept, EU and WTO) to watch over anti-trust practices.