Oracle buys Siebel

Oracle buys Siebel

This is hardly a surprise but it's useful as evidence that the Applications business is clearly going through a massive consolidation. Peoplesoft, JD Edwards and Siebel are no longer independent entities, Microsoft is beginning to realise that their multiple overlapping offerings need to be rationalised and SAP are circling and surveying the spoils.

Note: I'm not authorised to speak for IBM and I don't pretend to. This is, after all, my personal blog. And speaking as such, this deal is pretty exciting for me. I work in Application Integration... I build Enterprise Service Buses and deploy Service Oriented Architectures for a living. The solutions I build and the products I work with are purpose-built to protect clients in these sorts of situations. "Your strategic CRM/ERP/xxx platform may have developed an unexpected inflection in its roadmap? No worries! We can deal with this without impacting any of your other systems."

Interestingly and concurrently, eBay bought Skype today for what Scoble thinks might be around $4bn. That's a decent proportion of the $5.85bn that Oracle paid for Siebel. I wonder who got more for their money? $4bn seems like a lot of money for an internet phone company... even one as hyped as Skype.

For those IBMers who read his blog, here's what I wrote on my internal-only site: click here