SAP Fights Off Oracle in CRM Market

SAP still brings home more dollars from its CRM software business than anyone else, but Oracle is closing in on the German giant.

Last year, SAP was the top vendor by revenue in the customer relationship management category with about 26 percent of the market, followed by Siebel with 17 percent and Oracle with 6.4 percent. However, with Oracles purchase of Siebel Systems in January, Oracle now controls 23 percent of the market.

CRM software experienced strong growth in 2005, according to Stamford, Conn.-based research firm Gartner, as companies looked for more opportunities to drive revenue and expand business lines.

Worldwide CRM revenue totaled $5.7 billion in 2005, a 14 percent increase over 2004, Gartner says.

Salesforce.com, which specializes in an on-demand version of its software delivered over the Internet, owned about 5 percent of the market, and Amdocs also had about 5 percent.

The biggest gainer year-over-year was Salesforce.com, which experienced a 78 percent gain in revenue, from $158 million to $281 million.

“Merger-and-acquisition activity continued relentlessly in 2005, as larger vendors acquired smaller firms and market leaders acquired each other,” Gartner analyst Sharon Mertz said in a press release announcing the research.

“Buyers were solidly focused on new customer acquisition, expanding wallet share, process optimization and business accountability.”

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