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Cahners In-Stat expects the CRM midmarket to total $490 million by the end of this year, with rapid growth starting in 2002. The firm also sees opportunities in the U.S. enterprise market decreasing around 2004, and the midmarket products making up more revenue for CRM vendors.
This trend toward the saturation of the enterprise market is not lost on Siebel, and the company is planning accordingly. Siebels George Ahn estimates that there are about 400,000 target accounts with revenues under $200 million that potentially could use the companys products. Siebel sees about 20 percent of its license revenue from this market and expects it to grow. Ahn is bullish on the service provider delivery model. “Theres a natural fit for the middle market for ASPs,” he says.
While Siebels midmarket entries differ architecturally from their siblings in the enterprise product line, they do share the same data model, according to Ahn. “The basics are there—sales force automation, call center and marketing. Weve got several verticals, but you wont see the emphasis on specialization that we have in our enterprise line.”
One thing that you will see is a continued series of adjustments in positioning and products by the company in the midmarket space. Case in point: Siebel recently announced support for IBMs DB2 database running on both the AS/400e or the newer iSeries processors.