SAN MATEO, Calif. * April 6, 2005 * Siebel Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEBL), a leading provider of business applications software, has been recognized as a Leader in the rapidly growing hosted CRM market, according to a March 2005 Forrester Wave report by Liz Herbert. In addition to giving Siebel CRM OnDemand the highest rating for product strategy and vision, the report cites several strong characteristics of Siebel Systems' hosted CRM solution:
strong customization and integration tools and deep industry-specific offerings. Also of note, the report finds Siebel's ability to offer hybrid deployments with the company's on premise solutions to be an advantage for existing on premise customers. Organizations can now take advantage of all of these capabilities prebuilt into Siebel CRM OnDemand and be up and running in mere hours, days, or weeks.
In the past sixteen months, Siebel Systems launched Siebel CRM OnDemand and has already released six updates to its product, adding robust functionality and features at an unprecedented pace. These innovations include the industry's first and only real-time and historic analytic capabilities, a unique Sales Process Coach for replicating sales success, and the only industry-specific solutions available on the market today. Siebel CRM OnDemand has been positioned as a Leader for the second straight year and given the highest score among all participating vendors for vision and product strategy. Siebel received this rating despite being compared to other hosted CRM specialists that have been in the market for three, four, and even five years prior to Siebel CRM OnDemand's arrival.
"Siebel Systems' strategy and approach is to deliver prebuilt, yet highly customizable solutions that embed eleven years of best practices. In contrast, other hosted specialists provide very basic tools that require customers to build solutions from scratch which is time-consuming and expensive," said Bruce Cleveland, Senior Vice President and General Manager of OnDemand and SMB for Siebel Systems. "We are pleased that Forrester has highlighted Siebel CRM OnDemand as a hosted SFA Leader. Our commitment to hosted CRM and to our customers' success is underscored by this Forrester Wave report. We will continue to deepen this commitment and expand our innovation by leveraging Siebel's proven platform, built on the most advanced Web technologies."
Siebel was among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in this hands-on evaluation of Hosted Sales Force Automation (SFA) Vendors.
According to Forrester, being positioned as a Leader requires a strong product and strategy. To place highly, as Siebel CRM OnDemand did, vendors must have strong scores in both the current offering and strategy dimensions.
The Forrester report specifically highlighted a number of Siebel CRM OnDemand's key strengths in areas including: Deployment Options, Verticalization, Services, Sales and Implementation Strategy, Product Strategy and Vision, and Cost.
For instance, Siebel CRM OnDemand meets the unique needs and requirements of each of its customers by delivering prebuilt industry-specific functionality that is at the same time easily customizable. These industry-specific solutions, unlike other generic products available on the market today, do not require the customer to undertake expensive and time-consuming projects to build their own solution. Instead, these editions go beyond simple user interface templates to include business logic that supports critical processes such as marketing funds management in the high tech edition and risk profiling in the insurance edition. Siebel CRM OnDemand is available in four industry specific editions: financial services, high tech, life sciences, and automotive.
For more information on how to obtain a copy of the entire report, please contact Forrester Research at www.forrester.com.
About Siebel CRM OnDemand
Siebel CRM OnDemand is a hosted CRM offering delivered over the Web and accessible from an Internet browser at a fixed price per user per month.
Customers can deploy Siebel CRM OnDemand quickly, easily, and affordably without any up-front IT investments. Hosted by IBM, Siebel CRM OnDemand delivers complete sales, marketing, and service functionality; built-in customer analytics; virtual call center technology; embedded best practices; and world-class hosting services and support. Siebel CRM OnDemand is now available for purchase. For more information, visit www.crmondemand.com
About Siebel Systems
Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of business applications software, enabling corporations to sell to, market to, and serve customers across multiple channels and lines of business. With more than 4,000 customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides organizations with a proven set of industry-specific best practices, CRM applications, market-leading analytics products, and business processes, empowering them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and establish more profitable customer relationships. Siebel Systems' sales and service facilities are located in more than 30 countries.
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Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risk or uncertainties.
Future operating results of Siebel Systems may differ from the results discussed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to factors that include, but are not limited to, risks associated with customer relations, such as the availability of Siebel Systems' products and services, customer implementation of products and services, relationships with customers, third-party vendors and systems integrators, concentration of revenues in a relatively small number of customers, existence of errors or defects in products, ability to successfully manage growth, significant current and expected additional competition and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Siebel Systems are included in Siebel Systems' Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at www.sec.gov. Siebel Systems assumes no obligation to update the information in this press release.
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