Siebel: Old news is better than bad news

NEWS CRM vendor Siebel has followed up a poor results statement with the announcement of a deal with Haringey council - a deal that has been announced once before. Local government outsourcing company ITNet - Siebel's partner in the seven year, £3.5m deal - announced the contract win in September 2001, and cynical observers could be forgiven for being suspicious of the timing of Siebel's announcement. It comes just a day after a disappointing quarterly results statement, which saw sales fall 31 per cent and profits drop from $79m to $65.9m. Siebel has been heavily targeting the e-government sector, as the commercial CRM market becomes increasingly saturated. It has even hired John Major to its European advisory board, in a bid to boost government sales. Last year Leeds City Council became Siebel's poster child customer for the UK, and since then Moray Council in Scotland and Middlesbrough Borough Council have also signed up, but since then the contract wins have been slow to appear. In November, Siebel's local government ambitions suffered a blow after Brent Council signed up with Siebel rival Onyx, saying Siebel was too expensive. Brent was seen as an important deal, as the council is a member of the government's Pathfinder scheme for councils pioneering the move to electronic government.