Oracle begins CRM push on SMBs, starts in N.Z.

The holiday’s over for Oracle, too. Tomorrow, buzzes the news, Oracle will, in the words of say, Australian IT News, “launch a push to see customer relationship management software to small- and medium-sized businesses following a three-month delay to its program.”

Along the way to said push – originally scheduled for September, reports the News, was the high-profile “departure” of former Oracle Asia Pacific CRM head Paul Appleby. Reportedly, some 25 partners are on-board for the blitz and at one point, Oracle planned to employ 100 in the sales program. The only customer explicitly named in reports is the New Zealand subsidiary of 3M.

Meanwhile, techie reports out of New Zealand are saying that Oracle New Zealand has “released a new range of customer relationship management options to help small- and mid-sized businesses compete with larger ‘customer-centric’ organisations.

“Customers can chose either Siebel CRM Professional Edition On Premise, Siebel CRM On Demand hosted or a hybrid solution comprising the best of both. Oracle says the advantages of its CRM offerings are that they are tailored to the needs of sectors, can be deployed quickly and affordably, and can also be scaled easily through a transparent upgrade path.”

“Oracle in low-end CRM push” by Ben Woodhead can be read in full at Australian IT News. Ken Lewis’ “Oracle releases CRM range for SMBs” is available at M-Net.