"It's the End of Software," Declares SalesForce.com's Marc Benioff

Like Tom Siebel, Who Today Sold Siebel to Oracle for $10.66 per Share, Benioff is a Former Ellison Employee

Sep. 12, 2005 09:00 AM

"Oracle put Siebel investors out of their misery today," SalesForce.com's Marc Benioff (pictured) declared today to his employees and management team as Oracle agreed to buy Siebel for $10.66 a share. "We have been doing that for Siebel customers for years."

SalesForce.com's announcement today at its Dreamforce even will accelerate that, Benioff said, adding: "It's the end of software."

Benioff's anti-Oracle bias reverberated through his next words:

"Client/Server software is being consolidated by Oracle just as mainframe software was consolidated by Computer Associates. Oracle's strategy is simple. Instead of innovating, buy as much installed software as possible, call it all Oracle Fusion, and make sure it all uses Oracle's database. Now, the same thing that happened to Peoplesoft will happen to Siebel, it will die. Customers will look for new solutions and new providers. Employees will look for new employers. Siebel on Demand, a joint venture between Siebel and IBM, will be the first to be buried. Siebel on Demand is written exclusively on DB2 and Websphere and runs in IBM data centers. Oracle will kill it. Oracle does not sell DB2."

Ever the contrarian, Benioff sought today to spin Oracle's acquisition of Siebel as a major opportunity for his own company.

"Now, the opportunity to be the global leader in the CRM market has opened for salesforce.com. Our dream is becoming a reality as the world will move to new on demand solutions. Already the fastest growing public CRM company in the world, with over 50% market share in On Demand CRM, salesforce.com is well poised to become the world's new global CRM leader."

"It is auspicious," Benioff concluded, "that this is the very day that we are announcing our new strategy at Dreamforce with AppExchange and our Winter '06 release."

Published Sep. 12, 2005— Reads 14,435 — Feedback 2
Copyright © 2005 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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"It's the End of Software," Declares SalesForce.com's Marc Benioff

ISSJ News Desk wrote: "It's the End of Software," Declares SalesForce.com's Marc Benioff. 'Oracle put Siebel investors out of their misery today,' SalesForce.com's Marc Benioff declared today to his employees and management team as Oracle agreed to buy Siebel for $10.66 a share. 'We have been doing that for Siebel customers for years.' SalesForce.com's announcement today at its Dreamforce even will accelerate that, Benioff said, adding: 'It's the end of software.'

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