Well it's finally happened after months of rumours, Oracle has agreed to buy Siebel for US$5.85 billion and earns the title of "bull in a china shop". Following from their much publicised takeover of PeopleSoft this latest aquisition puts Oracle well on top of of the CRM space and if it hasn't already done so, will threaten it's relationships with SAP, IBM and Microsoft - it's very hard to treat someone as a partner when they've just openly set up shop across the street from you.
This will be an interesting one to watch, will Siebel customers jump ship, how successfully will Oracle manage such an aquisition when recent PeopleSoft and Retek buyouts are still being digested, how will SAP react to being knocked off the podium in the CRM market place ?
Needless to say market insiders will have plenty of spin to put on it - so far the most interesting is from Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com
"Even dinosaurs mate a few times before they die. It's the end of software. It's the end of Siebel."
Isn't it great when people say what they mean ....
