SAN MATEO, Calif. – October 17,
2003–Siebel Systems, Inc., the leading provider of customer
relationship management (CRM) solutions, today reaffirmed its
commitment to support UpShot customers after its acquisition of the
company, which is expected to be completed by early November. On
October 15, Siebel Systems announced that it had signed a
definitive agreement to acquire UpShot Corporation, a pioneer in
delivering hosted CRM service over the Internet.
“We will continue to support every UpShot customer
indefinitely,” said Siebel Systems chairman and CEO Thomas M.
Siebel in a letter to UpShot customers. “Siebel Systems is
fully committed to the hosted CRM market. Our objective is to
provide the industry’s best hosted CRM solutions—CRM
that is fast, easy, and affordable.”
Earlier this month, Siebel Systems and IBM jointly announced
Siebel CRM OnDemand, a hosted offering specifically designed to
meet the growing market demand for fast, easy, and affordable CRM.
Siebel CRM OnDemand is expected to be generally available before
the end of the year. Siebel Systems will offer UpShot’s
widely adopted solutions as well as its own Siebel CRM OnDemand
solution, with a roadmap to converge the best of both products into
a next generation hosted solution. When the converged product goes
live, Siebel will provide customers with a seamless transition.
“UpShot customers can count on the continued support from
Siebel Systems following this merger,” said UpShot president
and CEO Robert Reid. “By joining forces with Siebel, we will
continue to deliver innovative products and services, and we are
committed to the on-going support and value that our customers have
come to expect from UpShot.”
Reid, along with UpShot founder and chairman Keith Raffel and
other executives, will lead the merger of the UpShot workforce with
Siebel’s CRM OnDemand group and will play key roles in the
ongoing management of the group. Most of UpShot’s
approximately 100 employees, including engineers, sales, and
service personnel, also are expected to join the group.
About Siebel Systems:
Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of business applications
software, enabling corporations to sell to, market to, and serve
customers across multiple channels and lines of business. With more
than 3,500 customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides
organizations with a proven set of industry-specific best
practices, CRM applications, and business processes, empowering
them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and
establish more profitable customer relationships. Siebel
Systems’ sales and service facilities are located in 30
countries.
About UpShot:
Founded in 1996, UpShot Corporation is backed by ABN AMRO Private
Equity, Advanced Technology Ventures, Alloy Ventures, New England
Partners, and ORIX Venture Finance. Individual investors include
Bob Finocchio, former president of 3Com Corporation; and Tom
Proulx, co-founder of Intuit. Headquartered in Mountain View,
California, UpShot has more than 100 employees in nine regional
locations in the U.S. and more than 1,000 customers. Its products
include UpShot for small and midsize businesses, and UpShot
XE™ for larger organizations. UpShot’s innovative
service offering and market success has earned the company
prestigious industry awards, including Technology Partners
Investors‘ Choice, Microsoft Industry Solution Award, TMC CRM
Excellence Award, Willy Best Web-Based Subscription CRM Solution,
Upside Top 100, Aberdeen Group What Works, Frost & Sullivan
Market Engineering Award, and ASP News Top 20.
Except for the historical information contained herein, this
press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risk
or uncertainties. Future operating results of Siebel Systems may
differ from the results discussed or forecasted in the
forward-looking statements due to factors that include, but are not
limited to, risks associated with customer relations, such as the
availability of Siebel Systems’ products and services,
customer implementation of products and services, relationships
with customers, third-party vendors and systems integrators,
concentration of revenues in a relatively small number of
customers, existence of errors or defects in products, ability to
successfully manage growth, significant current and expected
additional competition, and the need to continue to expand product
distribution and services offerings. Further information on
potential factors that could affect the financial results of Siebel
Systems are included in Siebel Systems’ Annual Report on Form
10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and its other filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at
www.sec.gov. Siebel Systems assumes no obligation to update the
information in this press release.
Siebel is a trademark of Siebel Systems, Inc. and may be
registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product and company
names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are
mentioned for identification purposes only.
