Siebel Doubles Down On CRM

Siebel Systems Inc. pulled the trigger on two acquisitions Wednesday, including the addition of UpShot Corp., a hosted CRM provider that's expected to bolster the fledgling hosted service it unveiled earlier this month.

Siebel also disclosed the acquisition of enterprise incentive-management-software supplier Motiva Inc. and released third-quarter results that were in line with previously announced expectations.

Siebel will pay $50 million in cash when it closes the UpShot acquisition and could pay $20 million in earn-outs over the next two years. The deal is expected to close next month.

The acquisitions were not surprising given that Siebel has more than $2 billion in cash, and the addition of UpShot will be aimed at accelerating the penetration of its new hosted offering called Siebel CRM OnDemand.

"Make no mistake, we are doubling down in CRM," Siebel chairman and CEO Tom Siebel said during a conference call. "We're going to enable CRM on a broadly available basis--delivering the right solution to the right users the right way."

Privately held UpShot was founded in 1996 and was among the first companies to offer a hosted CRM system. The company has more than 1,000 customers.

"It became clear to us that a new hybrid CRM paradigm is emerging, combining hosted and on-premise CRM deployment models," UpShot president and CEO Robert Reid said in a statement. "Joining our forces with the CRM, support, and distribution capabilities of Siebel is a huge win for our customers, who will benefit from Siebel's strength, viability, and resources. This combination vaults us into leadership in the hosted CRM marketplace."

Siebel said it's paying $3 million to acquire Motiva and plans to make available an integrated enterprise incentive-management offering in the fourth quarter.

The addition of Motiva's services-processing architecture with Siebel's Incentive Compensation software will let users handle a broader variety of compensation approaches that can differ by industry, the company said.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Siebel reported a loss of $59.3 million on revenue of $321.4 million, compared with a loss of $92 million on revenue of $357.2 million in the third quarter of 2002.

This year's loss was attributed to restructuring and other charges. Excluding those charges, Siebel had net revenue of $16.1 million in the quarter.

For the first nine months of 2003, Siebel reported a loss of $45 million on revenue of $987.5 million, compared with net income of $2.3 million on revenue of $1.24 billion in the first nine months of 2002.