Siebel Announces Microsoft Integration
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT)and Siebel Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:SEBL) today announced the integration of Siebel 7, the latest version of Siebel eBusiness Applications, and the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family.
The agreement announced at Siebel Worldwide User Week 2001 says that Siebel 7 will support the Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft SQL Server 2000, as well as provide integration with other Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers such as Microsoft Exchange Server and BizTalk Server 2000. The aim is to provide global enterprise organizations with solution that builds customer satisfaction and loyalty while maximizing revenue.
“Siebel Systems’ large community of e-business customers will benefit from the enhanced enterprise capabilities of Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server 2000,” says Richard Gorman, vice president of Product Marketing at Siebel Systems. He believes the combination of Siebel 7 and .NET Enterprise Servers will deliver an enhanced and integrated e-business platform for their joint midmarket and enterprise-class customers.
Charles Stevens, vice president of the Enterprise and Partner Group at Microsoft explains that Siebel 7 also takes advantage of new features in the Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server products to maximize scalability, reliability and performance: “Together, Siebel Systems and Microsoft are delivering a total solution for building sales, marketing and customer support,” he says.
The advantages for joint Siebel Systems and Microsoft customers of enhanced features in Siebel 7 are believed to be:
— Scalability: Siebel 7 leverages the optimized performance offered in Windows 2000 to enable more flexible and scalable customer implementations. Performance characterizations show that Siebel 7 running on SQL Server 2000 is the most scalable Siebel Systems solution on the Microsoft SQL Server database to date.
— Performance: Siebel 7 supports load balancing solutions to provide optimal response times for users. The improved memory management and performance of the Windows 2000 Server family of operating systems benefits the performance of Siebel Systems’ solutions. SQL Server 2000 and Siebel 7 have been tuned for optimal joint performance.
— Reliability: Siebel 7 take advantage of Windows 2000’s enhanced reliability. Features such as ‘plug and play’-compliant hardware, PCI Hot Plug solutions and storage solutions available in Windows 2000 support maximum uptime for Siebel 7. As a result, Siebel Systems customers have 24×7 e-commerce solutions. Siebel 7 will also support advanced reliability features such as failover clustering of Siebel Application Servers built-in to SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition.
Goldman Sachs reports it is impressed with the demos of Siebel 7, which is currently beta testing with over 100 customers. In particular, the advanced nature of the browser user interface, which delivers high amounts of data on the screen and a high degree of interactivity for a thin client architecture are mentioned.
“The release of Siebel 7 is very strategic in positioning the company with an Internet architecture and competitively in the market going forward,” the report concludes.