HP And Oracle Partner On CRM

Hewlett-Packard and Oracle today unveiled a strategy to bring both the companies and their customers closer together through the use of Internet technology and Oracle's customer-relationship management suite on the HP platform.

Beginning in February, HP will use and sell the Oracle Sales component of Oracle's CRM suite. The agreement solidifies HP's position as a CRM platform and strengthens the company's ability to deliver E-services to its customers, according to Carly Fiorina, HP president and CEO. "Today's announcement demonstrates to Oracle and HP's mutual customers and shareowners that HP is moving strongly and aggressively as the leader in Internet computing today. Customers want better integration and faster implementation of their Internet solutions. They want smart, Web-based solutions to strengthen CRM."

The companies will also link their sales and operations lead-tracking systems, representing a change in the way Oracle has approached business in the past, says Lawrence Ellison, chairman and CEO of Oracle. Not only will Oracle's customers be able to share sales leads with their partners, HP and Oracle plan to use CRM to improve the way they service their customers. "Together, HP and Oracle will provide an entire CRM solution, delivering a comprehensive suite of applications that addresses marketing, sales, and services," Ellison says.

Today's announcement works to the benefit of both companies, says Peggy Menconi, research director for CRM with Advanced Manufacturing Research. "Oracle gets an HP sales force that's using [Oracle's] sales product and presumably would then be in a good position to sell the sales component of the Oracle CRM suite," she says. To HP's benefit, Oracle declared it will use HP as a development platform, which means future editions of Oracle E-business applications will be optimized for use on HP products.