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Oracle To Buy Siebel
jondaw writes "The BBC is reporting that "Software giant Oracle is buying US rival Siebel Systems in a deal worth $5.85bn (£3.2bn) in cash and stock...'In a single step, Oracle becomes the number one CRM [customer relationship management] applications company in the world,' said Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison.""
First PeopleSoft, now Siebel. What's next for Oracle?
Bradley Holt
Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been on a two week long troubleshoot call for Siebel problems, and today starts the third week. 8-12 hours a day, 100's of different _sets_ of sniffer traces, and no solution. The problem is in the application, not on the network. I am not familiar with Oracle's technical support, but it can't be worse than Siebel's, so I'm looking forward to this.
Oracle bought PeopleSoft a while back, and I haven't yet heard of any resultant headaches at the college I attend and work at. (PeopleSoft+Oracle setup.)
But that may be because of those coupons PeopleSoft issued while trying to avoid the buyout; they gauranteed the same level of support for some period of time I don't recall. It sounds like Siebel is going willingly, so I doubt their customers will get the same protection.
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as to what this means for IBM and their service based model. Does the concentration of big ticket erp system portend an end for db2?
My question is: Who actually needs all this bloat? There are much simpler ways of implementing a solution that would work while saving on the license fees and consultants.
I work for a government contracting shop in Northern VA. We're living high on the government hog, and one of our clients wanted to implement Documentum. This product is so big, they've created entirely separate applications (each measuring many megs in size) just to install and configure the application. As a programmer, I am frustrated trying to maintain this. Why can't it Just Work(tm) when you drop a WAR file into the /webapps directory (Documentum is java-based, and their webtop application's WAR is 128mb).
Consultingware is a phenomenon that I just don't understand. Our client has no need for 90% of Documentum's functionality. They just wanted to share files on the web. They've spent millions on servers, licenses, and consultants (including my company) to install and maintain it. I could have written something much smaller that fit their needs, and saved them most of their money.
I don't know, maybe this is just a gripe. But when something feature-rich like PostgreSQL is available and you're hiring talented coders to maintain a HUGE application instead of writing a very small and lean one... well, I just don't get it.
Every line is code comes with a price tag. The less code the better. The smaller and simpler solution the better. Less is more. This is important when you're trying to keep costs low and compete in a competitive marketplace, which I suppose is not happening with a gov't client or a big honking corporation.
But I don't expect everyone (anyone?) to agree with me.
Interesting enough, Tom Siebel, the founder of Siebel, was once an ex-Oracle exec. I believe he left under less than pleasant terms.
I imagine the phone lines between Armonk and Walldorf and Redmond and Walldorf are pretty busy now. Now that this penny has dropped IBM has got to be running the calculus on how much they can afford to tick off Oracle by buying SAP. As things are today IBM does much more business with SAP than they do with Oracle so I'm guessing there's about a 50% chance they will enter the game now.
They seem to be buying customers now.
My guess is their next takeover target is Computer Associates. CA seems pretty ripe for the pickin'.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Oh, I dunno... maybe finally, some semblance of linux support for siebel apps?
Possibly, since Oracle just released the Win version of ORACLE 10g only two months AFTER releasing the Linux and Unix versions.
Remember, with Larry, it's personal. If he has to encourage Linux to beat Bill, he'll do it. And IBM must be ROFLMAO at this new turn of events, even if they compete, they still get Linux to eat Win shorts.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It way exceeded our expectations. It's a nicer web-based solution without all the bloat. Oh, and it cost us a fraction of what the other products would have.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Actually, Larry Ellison has already created himself an altered reality - he fancies himself an ancient Shinto warrior. Among other things, he decorates his houses like he is a shogun and he shaves off his eyebrows.
.agrippa.
Don't believe me? Do a google image search for Larry and look at his eyebrows.
yeah i worked at scopus, which was acquired by siebel, so i became a siebel employee.
they were polar opposities in every way
scopus was founded by a programmer
siebel was founded by a salesman
scopus was lax on dress code
siebel had a strict dress code
scopus was a very laid-back organization. one indian programmer i had to work with insisted on working 4 hours a day - midnight to 4am.
siebel had an unwritten rule that 10 hours was barely acceptable, and most people worked 12+ hours
scopus had no rules about your work area
siebel had a bunch of rules, basically amounting to No Personal Items In Sight - no posters, no toys, not even a soft drink on your cubicle desk
scopus was a technically innovative product with cool stuff under the hood and a small(ish) footprint
siebel was bloated and clunky and gigantic
scopus was user-unfriendly because of lack of documentation and lack of consistency (naming standards, etc.)
siebel had every tiny little widget fully documented and uber standardization
scopus was run by a nice guy who was loyal to his employees and gave a lot of money to charities
siebel was (is) run by an arrogant asshole
what really got to me at siebel was the way the whole company has 2-3 marketing filters. it was suffocating because of all the sales-marketing bullshit encrusted onto everything.
for example, IN THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT, when you were making a new project, you had to create "Business Objects." WTF why were they called "Business Objects"? because it appealed to the C_O crowd and gave them little hard-ons to see words they recognized instead of confusing technical stuff. the whole product was like that - full of little marketing flair where there should have been efficient user tools/labels/whatever.