Here ares several excerpts from CRM Mergers and Takeovers Set to Continue:
After a spate of consolidations in the customer relationship management sector market that saw both Siebel and PeopleSoft snapped up by Oracle, there will be no let-up in merger activity, according to analysts Gartner.
“The CRM market will continue its consolidation unabated,” the analysts said in their latest research note, and listed 12 acquisitions “of note” in the last two years.
Despite two of the largest purchases in the software business, “Oracle has not finished purchasing CRM vendors”, Gartner predicted. Over the coming year Oracle “will look at adding analytics, industry-specific solutions, workforce automation and a software-as-a-service (on demand) vendor.”
Both Microsoft and SAP “have a pattern of technology purchases when gaps have been identified”, the firm pointed out, while Salesforce “has the resources and desire to gain scale and close the gap with two market leaders” through purchase.
According to Gartner’s latest market share figures (which were released last week) SAP is the market leader in CRM with $1.47bn (£800m) of revenue in 2005 and 25.6 percent market share. In second place is Siebel ($966m, 17 percent) and in third, Oracle, including PeopleSoft ($367m, 6.4 percent), giving a combined total of $1.3bn, significantly less than SAP.
The rising star in the CRM business is still Salesforce.com which, according to Gartner’s figures, saw its business grow by 77 percent last year.
