Hewlett-Packard Co’s new CEO, Carly Fiorina, is today expected to take the stand in her first appearance since becoming the head of HP to announce a partnership to resell Oracle Corp’s customer relationship management software on HP hardware. Although sources wouldn’t confirm the rumors, both companies issued press statements on Monday alerting the media to an event to be held at 8am PDT today. A spokesperson for HP said he couldn’t say if the two announcements were related but added two and two make four right? While HP wasn’t too specific in its briefing, Oracle was characteristically bold, billing the early-morning news conference as another piece of its unfolding CRM strategy.
Fiorina will appear side by side with Oracle chairman Larry Ellison to discuss the agreement, which is expected to be the first of many between the two vendors in the internet e-services space. Oracle hopes the move will bolster its position as one of the leading CRM vendors, alongside the current number one player, Siebel Systems Inc. The two have been waging a public war of words over the last couple of months with Oracle claiming only its CRM applications are web-enabled and Siebel asserting that it never comes up against Oracle when pitching for new business.
As well as a straight-forward reselling agreement, it’s also possible that HP will offer to host Oracle’s CRM applications as part of its ongoing Application Service Provider strategy.
