Briefs

Mike Murphy, principal and head of the Boston-based Software Investment Banking Group at RCW Mirus Inc., was interviewed by searchCRM Assistant News Editor Matt Hines.

Some exceprts:

Murphy: When we took a look at the CRM group versus other software segments, the CRM group reported the most difficulties in terms of sequential revenue. CRM is down minus 17%, while the overall enterprise software space is down about 10%, when you look at Q3 2001 compared to Q2. The CRM group had negative operating cash flow from operations of about $9 million versus software companies on average of about $2 million.

...

Murphy: Well, it comes down to having a critical mass of revenue and operating cash flow to weather the storm. Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft and Siebel are the hardiest. They'll probably be doing the buying. It's funny because save Siebel, these companies haven't traditionally focused on CRM. But they all saw a market opportunity in CRM mainly by how successful Siebel has been, and now they're becoming the biggest players in the game. There are also five to seven mid-tier companies that have a chance (of surviving). It's a difficult environment for them to compete against the likes of the majors, but E.piphany, DoubleClick, Chordiant and Kana have risen to the top and have a chance of remaining independent.

... Murphy: Any industry has a growth curve. Early on in the nascent stages you have a lot of vendors with niche products and then the industry naturally starts to consolidate around three to five players and the other players disappear or get bought by the survivors. Whether its software or any other industry, you're going to see this happen.

For full story, see http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/qna/0,289202,sid11_gci789942,00.html