Year
founded: |
Oracle
founded in 1977; SaaS product originated with 2006
Siebel Systems acquisition |
Number of
employees: |
~56,000
(2006)(number aligned with OnDemand SaaS CRM product not
disclosed) |
Annual
revenues: |
$14,380M
USD (2006) (revenue attributed to OnDemand SaaS CRM
product not disclosed) |
Target
market: |
SMB (small
and midsized businesses) |
Vertical
markets: |
|
Financial services
|
|
High tech
|
|
Life sciences
|
|
Automotive industries
|
|
Company
locations: |
Redwood
City, California (headquarters) |
SaaS
product awards: |
Customer
Inter@ction Solutions Magazine |
Partners: |
Significant partner network |
Partner
programs: |
Yes,
Authorized Consultants, ISV's, OEM, etc. |
Subscription pricing |
$65.00 USD
per user per month |
Underlying technology |
Hosted on
Oracle's Grid-based infrastructure with an all Oracle
stack |
Service
Level Agreement (SLA): |
Yes |
SLA
financial guarantee |
Yes,
financial credits applied for failed performance |
Support
Programs: |
Help desk,
strong partner network |
Oracle
OnDemand was inherited with the Siebel Systems
acquisition (Siebel previously acquired the UpShot
company and hosted product and later matured it to the
then Siebel OnDemand product suite).
Things
we like about Oracle OnDemand:
-
Backed by Oracle (some may see this as a negative,
however, we believe it is a positive)
-
Simple to use; great for small business
organizations
-
Good reporting and analysis
-
Excellent solution if you also use Oracle Financials
or similar Oracle application solutions
Things
we don't like about Oracle OnDemand:
-
Lacks feature sets and functionality depth of some
other on-demand CRM solutions
-
While we like it for small business, we don't think
its ready for midmarket or enterprise organizations
-
Marketing and customer service modules are perceived
as very weak
Oracle's SaaS Uncertainty
Oracle's long-term intentions for Siebel on Demand and
the SaaS business model have long been in question by
many industry insiders. Prior to the Siebel acquisition,
CEO Larry Ellison had publicly chastised the SaaS model
and discounted its value and potential. These concerns
were again echoed during Oracle’s fiscal first quarter
2008 analyst reporting call (September 2007) when CEO
Ellison clearly showed some distaste for the SaaS model.
One day after SAP announced its Business ByDesign SaaS
offering, Ellison suggested SAP is wasting its time
pursuing the middle market with a SaaS solution.
Ellison
proclaimed "We see the problem in that because we've
looked at going downmarket." "We've looked very closely
at it, and we think it's very hard to make money because
there is no synergy. Ellison went on to say “It's very
expensive to do ERP implementations in small businesses.
The cost of sales is high. The cost of implementation is
high. There are virtually no synergies in sales,
marketing, and product development and support."
Finally, Ellison commented "We just haven't figured out
a way to make a substantial profit in that market. We
think it's hard to make money." What does this mean for
the long-term support, promotion and viability of Siebel
OnDemand? We're not really sure. We suspect the only one
who knows is Mr. Ellison.
|
Various
trademarks held by their respective owners. |