Experts have applauded Oracle's attempts to "have it all ways" as it develops its customer relationship management (CRM) software after buying Siebel.
Although Siebel will be the figurehead CRM product in future, Oracle will also push the CRM components of its E-Business Suite for the construction, manufacturing and professional services sectors, according to analysts briefed during a conference call.
Oracle will also continue to support and develop the CRM capabilities in PeopleSoft and JD Edwards application suites although some doubted how much heft will go into new functions.
"We believe Oracle will do a bit more than the minimum necessary to keep the legacy CRM products going and current [but] we doubt whether there will be any spectacular new innovations," Ovum analysts said.
Oracle will lay off about 2,000 staff as a result of the Siebel integration but spokesman Bob Wynne said it will keep on more than 90 percent of Siebel product development, support and sales staff.
Although some observers suggested that Oracle might use its own datacentres for the Siebel CRM OnDemand hosted service, this will continue to be hosted exclusively by IBM.
Oracle also said it will press on with development of Siebel 8.0 and 8.1. AMR Research analysts noted, "The 8.0 platform is particularly important in that it merges the user interfaces for both on-premises and on-demand deployments, allowing for easy transitions from one model to the other."
However Siebel's Project Nexus composite application framework will not be part of the Fusion architecture for next-generation applications and middleware. Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said Nexus was not standards-based and had few customers. Oracle also plans to sell off Siebel's OnTarget sales consultancy division, because it is not core to its strategy.
Oracle's latest announcements should allay users' fears, said analysts. " This message provides stability and insurance for Siebel customers that have heavily modified their implementations or are using non-Oracle back-end systems, " AMR said.
But some noted that Oracle and its partners will need to excel at change management. "This deal is more about how rivals respond and whether or not integrators are up to the challenge of dealing with the inevitable complications from the next round of upgrade projects," said Paul MacGregor of project management consultancy PIPC.
