Siebel wobbles but it doesn't fall down

CRM software giant Siebel has announced staff cuts as its quarterly sales figures disappointed the market.

Siebel, easily the largest vendor of CRM software and the company largely credited with creating the CRM market, will cut its workforce by 16 per cent during the coming quarter, leaving it with around 6,000 employees.

The company's net profits for the second quarter were 61 per cent down from the same period a year ago, at $29.8m (£18.9m).

This was equivalent to six cents per share, less than the nine per cent analysts had been expecting.

Siebel also faced criticism for the increasing proportion of its revenues made up from "concurrent" sales - effectively bartering its software and services in exchange for services from its customers.

Concurrent revenues amounted to 15 per cent of Siebel's licensing revenue. The markets are increasingly suspicious of deals which involve exchange rather than genuine sales, following the chaos in the telecommunications industry caused by fibre capacity swapping.