IBM will rip out is Oracle Siebel customer relationship management platform and replace it with open source start-up SugarCRM, according to reports.
The Wall Street Journal claims Big Blue will hand over the contract to manage sales, marketing and customer relationships for 67,000 of its employees to SugarCRM. It had been using Siebel before the company was acquired by Larry Ellison’s Oracle for $5.8bn in 2005.
Neither party involved has confirmed the details but if true, it represents another blow for Oracle, following revelations that HP would also be replacing its Siebel installation, this time moving to salesforce.com.
"IBM was the world’s largest deployment of Siebel applications, and we view this replacement as yet another indication of the pressure on Oracle’s application business," JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens told the WSJ.
SugarCRM is based in Cupertino, California and was founded back in 2004. It recently disclosed an additional funding round of $33m, taking its total investment to around $80m as it looks to step up its battle with salesforce.com and Microsoft in the CRM world.
CBR spoke to CEO Larry Augustin a while ago, and he told us of his plans for the company, aiming to match the success of rival salesforce.com. "CRM itself is a very large market segment and I think – and salesforce.com shows this – we can grow to a $1bn plus company," he told us.
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