Software rivals Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft continued their
separate pushes into the realm of mobile customer relationship
management (CRM) last week.
Both companies announced applications geared toward connecting
mobile sales and service workers to corporate CRM systems and
touted their scalable data synchronisation capabilities.
CRM market leader Siebel added a set of mobile applications to the
Web-based Siebel 7 product line that it released in November.
Siebel 7 Mobile Solutions includes software that supports access to
CRM data via mobile phones, handheld devices and notebook PCs, the
company said.
PeopleSoft announced an upgrade of its Web-based PeopleSoft 8 CRM
applications. Release 8.4 adds mobile sales and field service
modules to the PeopleSoft 8 CRM line, which was introduced in
June.
PeopleSoft, which got into the CRM market by acquiring Vantive in
2000, is positioning Release 8.4 as the version that closes the
remaining functional gaps between its applications and those of its
rivals.
The new release is a key part of PeopleSoft's effort to broaden the
appeal of the CRM applications within the large installed base of
companies that use its enterprise resource planning software, said
Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at Enterprise Applications
Consulting.
Siebel's announcement was aimed at reminding users that it has "the
biggest, broadest, deepest set of mobile CRM functionality in the
industry", said Erin Kinikin, an analyst at Giga Information Group.
But, she added, Siebel's wireless messaging capabilities are not as
interactive as PeopleSoft's.
PeopleSoft is scheduled to ship the upgrade on 22 March, along with
new mobile data synchronisation technology that supports
Windows-based laptops and Pocket PC handheld devices.
Stan Swete, general manager of CRM at PeopleSoft, said Release 8.4
also includes interactive software that lets salespeople or a
company's customers dynamically configure products, plus a new
module that automates the process of tracking product
defects.
Siebel 7 Mobile Solutions is available immediately. Siebel said the
software lets multiple mobile end users access the same CRM
applications and then centrally synchronises and updates the data.