To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39152940,00.htm

Oracle: 'We'll crush Salesforce, not buy them'
'Put Benioff on the dole, not the pay roll'...

By Reuters

Published: Monday 03 October 2005

Oracle's president said on Friday his company would rather beat Salesforce.com than buy the much smaller provider of customer management software.

Oracle has been scooping up software companies to diversify its slow-growing database business. Most recently Oracle said it would buy Siebel Systems for nearly $6bn, raising the spectre that it might try to acquire Salesforce.com as well.

Oracle president Charles Phillips said of Salesforce.com at a press briefing in New York: "In this case I think it would be much more fun to crush them. We see a lot of ways to compete with them. We will try that for a while."

Salesforce.com, whose software tracks company sales, customer service and marketing, was founded by Mark Benioff, a former protégé of Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, who invested in the San Francisco-based company before it went public.

Phillips reiterated that Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle would "take a pause" on large acquisitions but has not ruled out making more medium-sized deals.

Phillips made the comments at a client gathering where Oracle promoted its middleware business, which has grown to 26,000 customers and $850m in revenue from zero of either in 2001.

Middleware, or software that helps disparate applications interact with each other, is a potential growth area for Oracle, which said its primary database business grew by only one per cent in its most recent quarterly financial report.