We Blog CRM

Oracle has announced that free Oracle business applications for the Apple iPhone are now available. Soon, businesses will be able to access Oracle CRM products on their iPhones. I guess this is to counter the growing friendship between SAP and RIM and also Microsoft and RIM. It will be interesting to see the kind of research and development push mobile CRM gives to hand held devices. Screen size and computational power are an issue as of now. At present the Oracle applications will focus on offering information on key metrics and analytical data. Oracle Business Indicators will allow a business to make company financial trends and supplier information available to its mobile workforce

The Oracle business applications will make use of the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Fusion Edition.

It appears that even the most “social” business functions of marketing and sales are not perfectly happy with the way social CRM is shaping up. These functions would rather have commissions and sales instead of a community.

What I don’t get is that even when they have a good thing going they are getting into cribs and nags about small things. Do they expect the software to close the deals for them. Maybe the whole thing is not as big a deal, maybe it is - for Oracle has come out with Sales Prospector, which is meant to help sales teams or individual sales reps build information-sharing networks that, in theory, will help them close more deals.

Of course, the key here is the sharing of data between salespeople. Would I want to share details on leads with fellow sales guys if my commissions depended on it?

Oracle has announced what it calls call “enhanced support across Oracle’s core BI foundation software, Hyperion Essbase and Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus (Oracle BI Suite EE Plus).”

Regarding Oracle BI Applications company officials state that they “offer new support for the Oracle E-Business Suite R12 including pre-built content and adapters for Financials, Human Capital Management, Order Management & Fulfillment, and Supply Chain modules.”

Read more here

Oracle has announced mobile interoperability with Nokia devices. Now, Nokia products can be used to access Oracle CRM and database software. Much like the Microsoft, BlackBerry, and iEnteprises collaboration, the Oracle and Nokia tie-up will give Oracle further access into the mobile CRM market.

The Oracle-Nokia collaboration offers three-pronged interoperability i.e. Oracle has validated Nokia’s Intellisync Device Management with Oracle’s Siebel CRM software; one can access Oracle Database Lite on Symbian Version 9/S60 Version 3; and run Siebel Wireless can run on the Nokia E90 Communicator.

Oracle has claimed that the combination of CRM and database in a wireless environment will help companies adopt mobile technology across the enterprise. The benefits offered by this partnership include secure and efficient deployment of the mobile CRM, cost effective operations, data security, increased customer satisfaction, and better management of customer issues.

Learn more here.

Navigor has launched Oracle’s Siebel-on-demand solution for SMBs in South Africa. Navigor hopes to push the new Siebel-on-demand offering as a solution for the CRM requirements of SMBs. The CRM is available as a rental option thereby putting it within reach of businesses of all sizes. Low entry costs, good broadband connectivity, no maintenance costs are some of the advantages that small businesses can hope to avail with the new Oracle offering.

Navigor will help businesses modify and categorize the CRM solution as per customer requirements. A little strangely, Navigor feels that convincing SMBs about the benefits of a hosted solution will be a challenge. It would be interesting to learn of other places apart from South Africa where SMBs need to be educated about the benefits of a hosted solution.

Oracle has stated that the growth prospects for its CRM and on-demand CRM solutions are looking good in the Asia Pacific region. The company’s partner base in the Asia Pacific, consisting of Siebel CRM On Demand resellers and implementation experts, has increased to more than 48 in the short span of 12 months.

A little unsurprisingly the company sees itself as the CRM market leader, though SAP, Salesforce.com and even Microsoft may have their own definitions of a CRM leader. Here’s Will Bosma evangelizing on how Oracle is the CRM Holy Grail for companies in the Asia Pacific. I wish, though, he had said something a little more original than exceeding customer expectations. 17% of the CRM market in the AP region is under Oracle’s control.

The news about Oracle today is reading like a press-release version of that 2001 Japanese cinema classic, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

The software behemoths aren’t destroying Tokyo with fire breath and the like, but there is a lot of bellowing and stomping going on involving three of the biggest names in the biz.

Computer World is running a bit more on the software lawsuit of the year, i.e. Oracle v. SAP AG, with SAP reportedly now hoping to settle with the big O. Oracle v. SAP, a case “about corporate theft on a grand scale, committed by the largest German software company,” in the opening words of the complaint.

Oracle originally brought the lawsuit against SAP in the US Federal District Court in the Northern District of California on March 22. The lawsuit alleged that King Ghidorah – i mean, SAP was guilty of violations to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Unfair Competition, Intentional and Negligent Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage and Civil Conspiracy, i.e. they ripped off Oracle data. Read more

A roll call of news from the big O, then, to cap the workweek.

Oracle Corporation doled out some nice awards this week, namely its top performing Oracle Partner Network partners with awards for delivering Oracle application solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Certified Advantage Partner IBM of France took the Oracle EMEA SMB Partner Award for Sales Performance; certified partner Abast Solutions (Spain) took the Oracle EMEA Partner Award for Customer Success; and the Oracle EMEA Oracle Accelerate Excellence Award was called a tie between certified partner De Theus Technologies (France) and certified partner Pyxis Consulting Group (Germany).

IBM France is a strategic systems integrator partner for Oracle and boasts a large Oracle applications practice. Abast Solutions is a twenty-plus year veteran of the IT market with more than 1000 customers. De Theus Technologies and Pyxis Consulting Group were among the first EMEA partners to submit an Oracle Accelerate solution for Oracle’s review following the programme’s launch in March.

The Oracle Accelerate programme based on “the company’s approach to fully address the diverse IT requirements of SMBs…” Meanwhile, from the technological heart of the Asian “region,” news outlet SDA-Asia reported on a statement out of Oracle stating that Oracle CRM On Demand is “gaining momentum” in the Asia Pacific market, which Oraclers now reckon will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.9 percent between 2006 and 2011, to reach $846.4 million in total software revenue in 2011.

The Oracle brain trust figures one-quarter of new business software will be delivered as software as a service by 2011.

Lest we forget Oracle also does actual CRM work, the big firm recently announced that Yarra Valley Water, a Australian water and sewage services provider, has selected Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to provide a reliable, scalable billing platform for the 1.5 million Yarra Valley customers in the Melbourne area. Yarra Valley Water’s legacy CRM system had been in place since 1995.

Finally, for those of you interested in the Oracle v. SAP corporate espionage lawsuit (and who doesn’t love a good lawsuit?), Oracle legal counsel Geoff Howard of Bingham McCutchen LLP got to exchange a little legal gunfire with SAP yesterday.

Oracle brought a lawsuit in the US Federal District Court in the Northern District of California against SAP and TomorrowNow in March. The lawsuit alleged that SAP was guilty of violations to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Unfair Competition, Intentional and Negligent Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage and Civil Conspiracy, i.e. they ripped off Oracle data.

Henning Kagermann himself spoke to the media after SAP legally filed in the ‘suit, explaining that TomorrowNow was authorized to download materials from Oracle’s Web site on behalf of TomorrowNow customers.

Kagermann also admitted that “SAP acknowledged that some inappropriate downloads of fixes and support documents occurred at TomorrowNow. Importantly, SAP affirmed that what was downloaded at TomorrowNow stayed in that subsidiary’s separate systems. SAP did not have access to Oracle intellectual property via TomorrowNow.”

In return, Howard stated that, “SAP CEO Henning Kagermann has now admitted to the repeated and illegal downloading of Oracle’s intellectual property. Oracle filed suit to discover the magnitude of the illegal downloads and fully understand how SAP used Oracle’s intellectual property in its business…”

Sounds confident, eh?

The press release came ran something like this: NetSuite Inc., a vendor of on-demand, integrated business management application suites that provide ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and e-commerce functionality for small and medium-sized businesses and divisions of large businesses, today announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock.

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC will act as sole book-running manager for the offering. In addition, WR Hambrecht + Co will act as co-manager of the offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. Copies of the preliminary prospectus for the offering, when available, may be obtained from Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, etc.

But then came the flurry of commentary and reactions to the whole Larry Ellison connection thing from the blogosphere and mainstream media, not to mention the red ink of the balance sheet.

According to NetSuite numbers required for public release upon announcing an IPO, For the quarter ended March 31, the company reported net losses of $3.7 million on sales of $23.2 million. In 2006, NetSuite generated $67.2 million in revenues and net losses of $23.4 million.

Even more catching to the collective imagination, though, and thus reported everywhere was that Oracle Corporation CEO Ellison “controls about 74 percent of the stock in the San Mateo company through Tako Ventures LLC. Netsuite said it plans to use some of the proceeds to repay a $7.5 million balance on a secured line of credit to Tako.”

NetSuite will be selling ten percent of its shares in the IPO and hopes to garner $75 million.

Focus Solutions Group plc closed the week with the announcement that the firm had launched “an integrated front office and customer relationship management solution that is integrated with Oracle CRM solutions, into the EMEA financial services market.”

Additionally, the folks in Focus PR announced that the unnamed CRM solution had been delivered to an unnamed Oracle/Focus joint customer.

The solution promises to allow a rich set of client data to be transferred from either application along with compliant documentation. Focus is providing fact finding, needs analysis, risk profiling, and quote-and-apply functionality as part of the solution, which will be targeted at retail banking, insurance and wealth management organisations.