Siebel Systems Inc. unveiled the latest version of its CRM OnDemand software, release 9, Monday. The news comes on the same day that Oracle Corp. announced its bid to acquire Siebel for US$5.85 billion as a way to become the dominant supplier of CRM (customer relationship management) software.
CRM OnDemand 9 is Siebel’s fourth release of its hosted CRM software to appear this year, according to a company release. The new version integrates with IBM Corp.’s Lotus Notes groupware as well as Siebel’s own hosted contact center, Contact OnDemand, and the company’s on premise CRM software.
Enterprise users and channel partners can customize CRM OnDemand to enable them to brand the applications as their own before they deploy them to their staff and customers, the release stated.
Siebel is hoping that adding full support for Lotus Notes will attract more customers. Previously, the company’s software only supported Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook groupware. Siebel is trying to compete against the hosted CRM market leader Salesforce.com Inc., which is due to talk up the next release of its rival software this week at its Dreamforce user conference in San Francisco.
The new release of the Siebel software also includes IVR (interactive voice response) integration with third-party systems enabled via SOA (service-oriented architecture), according to the release. Siebel has also improved its analytics features in CRM OnDemand 9 as well as extending the capabilities of the software’s data warehouse tracking and its real-time performance statistics, the release stated.
More information about CRM OnDemand 9.0 is available at this Web site .