Siebel staff wait to hear Oracle's plans

NZ office was set up just last month

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The future of Siebel’s recently-appointed New Zealand country manager, Aden Forrest, and Siebel’s other local staff is uncertain following Oracle’s announcement last week that it will acquire the company. Siebel set up a local office just last month.

Forrest says he is unable to talk about the acquisition and referred Computerworld to Siebel’s website, saying “I can’t provide more comment at this point.”

Forrest is New Zealand’s first Siebel country manager. Four other full time Siebel staff in New Zealand were appointed following Siebel’s appointment of Forrest and the establishment of a New Zealand office in Auckland last month. Previously, New Zealand Siebel customers had been serviced from Australia.

Oracle and Siebel announced last week that they had reached an agreement that Oracle will buy Siebel for $US5.85 billion ($NZ8.3 billion). The deal is expected to close early next year and until then, the two companies will operate on a business-as-usual basis.

Local Siebel customers spoken to by Computerworld say they’re not overly concerned by Oracle’s acquisition of the CRM vendor.

In a statement, Vector IS manager Nigel Bonser said: “Oracle is a reputable company and what really matters is what they do with the product.

“We’ll take a wait and see approach.”

HP’s enterprise and corporate marketing manager, Jeff Healey, says HP is “a long-time partner and customer with both Siebel and Oracle and we value our marketing and technology alliances with both.

“We have great local relationships with Oracle and Siebel.”

Other local Siebel customers include Vodafone, Sun and EDS.