Tom Siebel: Paid to be paranoid
Published: 22 May 2002 13:12 BST
The founder and chief executive of the enormously successful Siebel Systems saw his software company's revenue drop in the first quarter. With German rival SAP closing in on the No. 2 position in the market, Microsoft also announced plans to introduce competing software by year's end.
Studies from market researchers suggested a high rate of customer dissatisfaction with customer relationship management software, a segment in which Gartner and Merrill Lynch rate Siebel as the largest player.
If any of this should be cause for worry, the CEO isn't letting on. Since leaving Oracle to found his own company in 1993, Siebel has pushed Siebel Systems to the top of the rapidly growing CRM market. With more than $2 billion in sales last year, Siebel Systems commands 45 percent of the CRM software market.
Siebel recently spoke with us at his headquarters about the future of the business applications market, the role of information technology in the government's homeland security plans, and an increasingly nasty spat with rival SAP.
Q: Siebel introduced a homeland security product recently that allows government agencies to track suspected terrorists as a company would track its customers. Are any government entities biting?
A: It's used by the Transportation Security Agency. That's the only government agency I'm aware of right now that's using it. This is the agency that was formed after 11 September to deal with airport security.
How is the agency using your products?
They're using it associated with the screening and training with all personnel that they're hiring in airport security.
What does your software help them do?
It helps them keep track of potential employees, who they are, what they're backgrounds are, what sort of training programs they need, ongoing training.
In terms of infringing on privacy, can computer-based monitoring and profiling be taken too far?
If we look at what we knew going into 11 September about the backgrounds of these people -- and for what it's worth, none of these people were citizens -- our government knew that money had been transferred from Al Qaeda operatives. They knew there were a number of people with visa violations. They knew these people had left abandoned aircraft running on runways in Miami. All the things we knew about these people -- we had everything we needed to know to be able to stop the crisis of 11 September.
But basically because of the way that we're structured, it's very difficult for the FBI to communicate with themselves, even because they keep everything in manila files. We knew the day Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi agents in Prague. We knew the day he entered the country. We knew the day his roommate (Marwan) Al-Shehhi got a $100,000 wire transfer from an Al Qaeda operative. We knew all these facts. If they had been able to associate these facts, people never would have been blown up on 11 September. It's not a question of if we're going to share information across agencies about these things. The only question is how many people are going to die before we do it. The idea that the American people will incur some sort of intrusion or loss of privacy to live is ridiculous. How intrusive is an airport security check?
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