The CRM Software Guide

February 12, 2008

TUE 12 FEB

Finally Salesforce.com is Up For Sale 2 comments Tags: Acquisition; crm; crm software; oracle; salesboom.com; salesforce.com; software-as-a-service

 

Finally Salesforce.com is Up For Sale

 

 

I have speculated long ago that Oracle (NasdaqNM:ORCL) will end up gobbling Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) just like they did with JDEdwards, PeopleSoft, Sibel and many others because it is part’s of Oracles strategy: growth-by-acquisition.

 

 

Yesterday Tom Foremski from siliconvalleywatcher.com claimed that a reliable insider at salesforce.com revealed to him that the company has shopped itself to Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) for $75 a share for a total of almost 9 Billions, which represents an over 50% premium over the price of the stock before reacting to the news and gaining 8% yesterday. Oracle stock increased by 2% on the news.

 

 

 

I am not sure what to make of this news, but it is worth mentioning that Oracle refused to comment which makes the story likely. Even if this was just a rumor, Oracle’s Larry who is used to bashing Salesforce.com has not said a word this time which to me suggests he is actually interested in such a deal.

 

 

If this news story is legitimate then Salesforce.com customers are in big trouble! We all know that Oracle is not SME friendly at all, and Larry himself couple months ago said that no one have figured a way to make money in the SME market yet! Salesforce.com customers will end up dealing with Oracle which has a businesses plan that expects customers to pay an arm and a leg for their expensive products.

 

 

The bright side of the story is that these customers have choices and in some cases better choices for better pricing terms. Take for example Salesboom.com which offers a similar hosted CRM service for 40% less pricy on average and has been in business since 2001 and already serves over 6000 customers worldwide.

 

 

Other vendors including Salesboom.com also offer a free migration process that helps customers of Salesforce.com jump ship easily by exporting their entire data from SFDC quickly, especially when Salesforce.com does not actually offer easy-export tools to export all their data at once, hence Salesboom CRM Migration Magic Button.

 

 

We have to wait and see the outcome of this news, and we shall talk again!