Siebel: we are not just CRM

Siebel Systems announced last week that it had updated its product strategy to win more enterprise business.

The vendor, which is best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) software, is steering clear of the term CRM and instead refers to its front-office products as 'e-business' software.

Pat House, executive vice-president at Siebel, said: "We look at CRM and say it is a fraction of what we do. Clients want to apply information technology to improve how they sell and service, which is much bigger than just managing customers."

The company launched its latest suite, Siebel eBusiness 2000, last month.

Siebel said the suite, which combines CRM, partner relationship management and enterprise application integration software, will help companies manage sales, marketing and customer service across all communication channels, including the Web, the call centre and field sales.

Siebel partners are sold to customers as essential components of the software, House said.

Meanwhile, Siebel advanced even deeper into the business-to-business software segment when it agreed to buy e-commerce software vendor OpenSite Technologies in a $444m (£284m) stock deal (CRN, 26 April). The acquisition is expected to be completed before the end of May.