Salesforce.com launches brain raid on Siebel

Customer relationship management (CRM) company Salesforce.com is making a cheeky attempt to poach top staff from Siebel, which is in the process of being acquired by database giant Oracle.

In an email sent to his staff last week, Salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff outlined a plan to poach talent from Siebel before the end of the year. Earlier this month Oracle announced plans to buy Siebel for $5.8bn.

Benioff said in the email: "Following the proposed acquisition of Siebel by Oracle, many existing Siebel employees may be concerned about their career prospects, we want to offer them an alternative to an environment of declining commissions, confused customers and uncertainty around career viability."

Salesforce.com is now offering a $5,000 signing bonus for current Siebel employees that it hires before the end of the year. Benioff said: "We are actively hiring worldwide and need the most qualified people we can find to help us further expand our growing community of success."

The CRM company already has a $5,000 referral fee programme in place for its own employees who identify candidates that the company goes on to hire.

Siebel insiders can contact Salesforce through a special email address, and the company is holding recruitment events later this month.

Oracle's deal to buy Siebel has ratcheted up the pressure in the hyper-competitive enterprise software market. Last week Oracle's president Charles Phillips said rather than try and buy Salesforce.com, he thought it "would be much more fun to crush them".