What's in a Name? Oracle's Mixed Message With Siebel CRM On Demand

Oracle reverts to the Siebel moniker for the newest version of its CRM On Demand product, which features several usability, customization, and integration enhancements.

Oracle Corp. has made generally available the latest iteration of its acquired Siebel Systems on-demand product, an offering that revives the Siebel moniker despite Oracle's previously announced decision to rebrand the software as"Oracle CRM On Demand." The new edition, Siebel CRM On Demand Release 14, leverages Oracle Fusion Middleware technology; is the first major release of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering since Oracle finalized the acquisition of its former rival in January 2006; and is the first to run entirely on Oracle's infrastructure.

Many of the improvements fused into the product concentrate on strengthening usability and customization capabilities as well as tightening integration with other applications, such as Oracle E-Business Suite. The release draws on programming languages such as AJAX and technologies such as in-line edit to simplify user tasks. The release also introduces home-page customization functionality, such as the ability to arrange page elements such as lists, history, and favorites based on end-user preference.Release 14 also provides integration with other applications and systems at the process-, data-, and user-interface (UI) levels, according to the company. "The improvements in the UI and the customization capabilities are pretty big and are required to keep them competitive," says Rob Bois, a research director at AMR Research. "It seems like all the CRM vendors today are spending a lot of time and effort improving usability because they recognize that usability is still a big challenge."

Robert DeSisto, vice president of CRM at Gartner, takes a similar stance in a June 2007 research note entitled, "Oracle Has Renewed Its Focus on CRM on Demand," noting that the release improves usability and customization, Oracle E-Business Suite integration, and physical database separation. "It also leverages Oracle Fusion Middleware; however, it is limited when creating custom objects," he writes.

Release 14 also includes industry-specific editions; a built-in virtual call center; embedded analytics; and a prebuilt data warehouse for real-time decision-making. "We continue to see Siebel CRM On Demand really building in the analytics as a key differentiator, and we've seen a lot of customers get a lot of value out of the analytics piece of the solution," says Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research, which has a "Siebel CRM On Demand Guidebook" available for download from Oracle's corporate Web site.

Interestingly enough, however, Oracle's on-demand positioning appears to contradict the company's previously announced roadmap, which seemed to include retiring the Siebel name in favor of an Oracle brand. (The April 17, 2007, press release announcing that Release 14 would be available "within 12 months" clearly labeled the product "Oracle CRM On Demand.")

Prior to the January 2006 Siebel acquisiton, Oracle CRM On Demand "was developing market momentum and becoming a formidable competitive threat to Salesforce.com," according to DeSisto's note. "However, since the acquisition, interest in Oracle CRM On Demand had diminished significantly in the market. Gartner has seen a reduction of nearly 75 percent in inquiries on competitive customer evaluations involving Oracle CRM On Demand," he writes. "Having acquired multiple large installed bases (such as Siebel On Premise, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards), Oracle's focus has been on such programs as Applications Unlimited and Oracle Fusion, rather than growing Oracle CRM On Demand."

Oracle executives were unavailable for comment by press time to discuss the release. But for Oracle's part, this new edition--the 14th release of the product in three-and-a-half years--marks the first formal announcement of the availability of a new Siebel CRM on Demand product since the April 2006 announcement of version 10, which was rebranded at the time as Oracle CRM On Demand. (As with Release 10, pricing for Siebel CRM On Demand Release 14 starts at $70 per user, per month.) In the intervening period, Oracle rolled out Releases 11, 12, and 13, but no formal press announcements were made; the naming convention and branding used for those release versions was not clear at press time, nor was the precise timing or rationale behind the reversion to the Siebel name.

The naming conventions can get somewhat convoluted because Oracle refers to the application service provider (ASP) part of its business--which includes a hosted version of the traditional Siebel application--as "on demand," although, according to Bois, Oracle's homegrown (pre-Siebel-acquisition) version lacks the bona fide multitenant SaaS functionality of Siebel CRM On Demand. "They use 'on demand' to describe the ASP model as well as the true SaaS version, so customers do tend to get a little bit confused. The more they can distinguish the true SaaS product from the traditional ASP version would certainly help." Oracle, Bois continues, "hasn't figured out how long and how firmly they want to hold on to the Siebel brand, but it clearly carries a lot of equity so they're trying to keep the Siebel brand in there as long as possible."

To that end, Wettemann contends that stamping the Siebel CRM On Demand with Oracle's name had confused customers, rather than clarifying and simplifying the brand. "Going back to Siebel is a good recognition of the strengths of that brand name," she says. "It's taking away that confusion because customers are clear that what they're getting is the Siebel product that was developed and not the Oracle CRM product."

Overall, Bois maintains that it's good to see Oracle continue to put an emphasis on the on-demand product. "SaaS is driving the future growth of the CRM space," he says. "When you have one of the biggest CRM vendors continuing to push that, it's good for the industry."

Author: Coreen Bailor

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Paetec uses Oracle SOA to automate ordering

Oracle and Paetec Communications today announced that Paetec has deployed Oracle’s Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications, enabling the competitive service provider to more efficiently automate the full service delivery process, from sales and contracts right through to provisioning the service.

By deploying Oracle systems throughout its back office, Paetec also has enabled more rapid and efficient integration of U.S. LEC, the competitive services provider with which it is merging, said Bob Moore, Paetec’s chief information officer. Using the Oracle E-Business Suite will enable the company to have a single, consolidated view of customers as it continues to work to consolidate databases and merger OSSs, he said.

While Paetec has used Oracle systems in the past, including Siebel order management and customer care products, Portal Software billing and revenue management and MetaSolv service fulfillment products, using SOA applications to tie everything together “supercharges our relationship with Oracle,” Moore said.And most importantly for Paetec, which differentiates itself in the competitive market by offering complex services tailored to enterprise needs, tying everything together enables rapid, paperless, automated ordering, Moore said.

“We have the sales force mechanized and the contract process mechanized, but then [the sale] goes to an order group, given how complex Paetec’s service line is, since we differentiate by being high-tech and high-touch,” Moore said. “The one piece that has been missing has been automated paperless ordering system. Generally how people do it is to pick your package, then someone in the back end takes it and connects the dots.”

Using Oracle SOA will also enable Paetec to continue its practice of providing profit assistance online, as that is integrated within the Oracle workflow of the sales process, Moore said.

“The sales reps take a building block approach from the ground up of what they are selling, and the costs are built into this,” he explained. “We do margin approvals based on that. What makes ours special, and one of the things that has always differentiated us, is the high-touch value collaborative sale. It enables us to keep really good margins and be good selling to the enterprises, which is one reason for churn that is industry low.”

By tying together systems using Oracle Fusion Middleware, account reps can sit down with customers and do point-and-click building blocks of service components to quickly process a completely customized contract, Moore said.

Paetec is rolling out these systems now and will connect them using the Oracle SOA applications by the first quarter of 2008. The company will be able to integrate U.S. LEC customers into the process, even before it moves billing data from the system that U.S. LEC used onto a different billing system that Paetec is using.

“The most disruptive thing you can do to a customer is change billing systems,” Moore said. “This way, the consolidated view of the customer lives within Oracle – all the workflow, ordering from business and systems perspective is all Oracle – things flowing in and out of billing system and in and out of the order system are all Oracle. That doesn’t mean we won’t consolidate our billing systems at some point, but we don’t have to do that right away.”

Author: Carol Wilson

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Oracle refutes 'SSH hacking' slur

An investigation by Oracle has revealed the none of its systems were involved in launching a recent brute force attack on secure servers around the net.

From the beginning of May until earlier this week, "compromised computers" at Oracle UK were listed among the ten worst offenders on the net for launching attacks on servers which run SSH (secure shell) server software, according to statistics from servers running DenyHosts software to block SSH brute-force password attacks. DenyHosts is a script for Linux system administrators designed to help thwart SSH server attacks. Around 6,800 users contribute to the data it collects.

Oracle servers - recorded as active since 3 May - featured at number nine of DenyHosts list. The listing implied a computer (or multiple computers) at Oracle UK been compromised for weeks, allowing hackers to gain access to Oracle's bandwidth to hack other boxes elsewhere on the net.Following our inquiries last week, Oracle supplied us with a holding statement saying it was investigating the problem. The database giant concluded this investigation early this week. It says none of its systems were responsible for the attack.

"Security is a matter we take seriously at Oracle and our first priority is meeting customer needs and reducing their risk. As soon as Oracle was made aware of the situation we began an investigation, which is now complete. Oracle can confirm that none of its systems were responsible for an SSH brute force attack and the allegation of compromised computers at Oracle has been removed from the Deny Hosts website," it said.

So if DenyHosts's listing was erroneous how did the entry for the database giant get there in the first place. Reg reader Stephen has one theory:

"There are a couple of issues in the present DenyHosts that could cause a group to insert their favourite bad-guy site into the DenyHosts database. They all seem to be related to regular expression problems".

"I confirmed that one could insert false sites in by just spamming a bunch of sites with echo "string from oracle IP" as listed above. It is probably not the cause for this issue, but could be used as a cover," he adds.

We were unable to contact DenyHosts at the time of writing so the exact cause of the Oracle listing remains unclear.

Author: John Leyden

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