THE BOTTOM LINE

Oracle's Seibel purchase should drive more value for customers through integrated business management applications, and deliver existing Oracle customers with more sophisticated CRM functionality. The Oracle-Siebel combination is likely to present a strong ROI message, driving shorter deployments and greater integration. Faced with the combined competition of Siebel and Oracle, SAP's short-term challenge will be to be both more nimble and more creative in delivering and articulating its value to the marketplace.