Siebel signs reseller deal with IBM in bid to remain independent

IBM has signed up Siebel Systems as its recommended supplier of customer relationship management (CRM) applications and is integrating them with a raft of its own software offerings.

However, the pact is seen by analysts as an attempt by Siebel to remain independent, following the acquisition of Clarify and Vantive, its two arch rivals, last week by Nortel and Peoplesoft respectively. The move is the latest in a series of partnerships signed by Siebel, which include a product integration deal with Lucent and a reseller relationship with JD Edwards.

Erin Kinikin, an analyst at Giga Information Group, said: "This is a Switzerland play. It is establishing the right alliances so that customers will not have to worry about Siebel's size and whether it will be around for the long term."

Under the terms of the deal, Big Blue will transfer 50 of its engineers to Siebel?s headquarters in California to integrate its sales force automation (SFA) applications with IBM?s MQ Series messaging software, its Websphere application server, Visual Banking financial environment, Net.commerce ecommerce server and its computer telephony integration tools.The integration is expected to be complete by the time Siebel releases the next major version of its SFA packages in the first quarter of 2000.

Richard Gorman, Siebel's vice president of product marketing, said the deal was an extension of an existing 12 month relationship, under which Siebel resells IBM's DB2 database. But, he explained, the latest agreement will enable IBM to provide its customers with products to deal with CRM issues.

He added: "IBM has told us that 66 per cent of its accounts want to implement a front office [CRM] product within the next 12 months. IBM will recommend Siebel to these accounts."