Oracle Extends On-Demand CRM Push
Oracle CRM On Demand Release 16, based on the CRM applications Oracle acquired when it bought Siebel Systems in 2006, is Oracle's entry in the hotly contested Software-as-a-Service CRM arena where the vendor competes with Microsoft, Salesforce.com and others.
While Oracle provides the service direct to customers, a number of Oracle solution providers, including Apex IT, CD Group and eVerge, work with the applications as part of their consulting service offerings.
The software's new custom objects feature helps businesses customize the on-demand CRM applications at the user interface, business process and data layer levels, according to Oracle. The product already includes prebuilt objects, such as realtime reporting and external data integration software, and users can define relationships between custom and prebuilt objects without coding.
Oracle is also offering Oracle CRM On Demand Single Tenant Standard Edition, a version of the CRM product for customers that want their own instance of the application that's hosted on a dedicated hardware and software stack. Salesforce and many other SaaS vendors provide their applications on a multitenant basis where multiple customers access the same instance of an application as a way of keeping costs low. But some customers with concerns about security and system performance have hesitated to adopt multitenant SaaS.
The new partner relationship management features in Release 16 expand on the "partner license option" functions in earlier releases to provide a broader range of indirect channel-management capabilities. The application, for example, now offers tools for partner program management, special pricing, deal registration and lead management.
Release 16 also has added features for specific vertical industries, according to Oracle, particularly in life sciences and the insurance industry.
The multitenant enterprise edition of Oracle CRM On Demand is priced at $70 per user, per month. The standard edition of the single-tenant application is priced at $90 per user, per month, while the enterprise edition of the single-tenant release costs $125 per user, per month.