IBM Partners With Siebel Systems to Deliver Customer Focused e-Business Solutions to Mid-Sized Customers.

Business Editors

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. & SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Aug. 7, 2000

Companies Extend Alliance to Offer One-Stop

Shopping in $10 Billion CRM Marketplace

IBM and Siebel Systems (NASDAQ: SEBL) today announced that they have extended their global strategic alliance to market, sell and deliver e-business solutions to mid-sized customers around the world. The companies also announced plans to market Siebel e-business applications directly to IBM's 90,000 Business Partners in an effort to standardize partners' internal business processes, eliminate inefficiencies and improve customer satisfaction.

The combination of Siebel Systems' industry-leading e-business applications with IBM's industry-leading e-business infrastructure, technology and services offer the most complete, reliable and cost-effective customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for medium-sized businesses.

"Midmarket businesses represent a tremendous opportunity because of their unique needs as they expand in an e-business world," said Peter T. Rowley, general manager, IBM Global Midmarket Business. "Today, IBM is strengthening its alliance with Siebel Systems to provide mid-market customers and IBM Business Partners with the solutions they need to profitably acquire, maintain and grow customer relationships."

"Building and sustaining long-term profitable customer relationships is a primary challenge facing companies of all sizes," said Thomas M. Siebel, Chairman and CEO, Siebel Systems. "We are very excited about today's announcement -- it will allow Siebel Systems to dramatically extend its market leadership in the mid-market space and more importantly, offer these customers the same compelling financial returns and competitive advantages that over 100 customers have already achieved with IBM and Siebel."

The IBM-Siebel agreement is an expansion of a broader relationship between the companies. Last Fall, IBM announced a global strategic alliance in which IBM and Siebel agreed to jointly develop, market and sell integrated e-business solutions. This alliance also included Siebel's choice of IBM's DB2 Universal Database (b) as the company's primary development platform. In June Siebel Systems also said it would port Siebel's e-business applications to the AS/400e (b) server platform. The latter is significant because IBM has more than 200,000 loyal customers using AS/400e technology. Siebel also supports the IBM RS/6000 (b) and Netfinity Servers (b), IBM's DB2 Universal Database, its CallPath (b) middleware, and IBM's Websphere Application Server (b), Websphere Commerce Suite (b) and MQSeries (b), all part of IBM's WebSphere software platform.

Today's announcement includes:

-- Collaborative Marketing and Sales. In addition to training the thousands of
sales personnel that IBM has selling into the mid-market space, the two
companies will assign dedicated sales teams to jointly sell the integrated
offerings to both medium-sized customers and IBM Business Partners. IBM and
Siebel will also train many of IBM's Business Partners who serve the IT needs
of thousands of smaller customers worldwide. Finally, IBM and Siebel are
investing additional dollars in their very successful joint marketing campaign
to target the mid-market customer base as well.

-- One-Stop Shopping. IBM and Siebel will offer a broad-range of customizable
solutions to meet the needs of mid-sized companies and IBM Business Partners -
whether customers are looking to implement their first customer-facing
e-business solution or enhance their existing one. Companies can now purchase
what they need for their project's success from IBM and Siebel, including:

-- Siebel Solutions: Siebel eBusiness 2000 or Siebel eBusiness

2000, Mid-Market Edition;

-- Database: IBM DB2 Universal Database data management

solutions;

-- Hardware: IBM NT-Based Netfinity (b), UNIX-Based RS/6000 (b),

or AS/400e servers and IBM's entire line of ThinkPad (b)

notebooks and NetVista (b) desktops;

-- Services: Provided by IBM Global Services and joint IBM &

Siebel certified Business Partners, depending on the solution,

many companies can expect to be live and in production in less

than 30 days;

-- Flexible Financing: Regardless of its size, no company has an

unlimited budget. IBM Global Financing, the world's largest IT

financing organization, offers customers the financial

flexibility they need to acquire the right IBM and Siebel

solution. For example, companies today can acquire an

end-to-end IBM-Siebel sales force automation solution for as

low as $175 a month per user.

IBM and Siebel are making available fully integrated, industry-specific, customizable solutions to address the more complex needs of rapidly expanding medium-sized businesses. These can lower customization and maintenance costs, reduce implementation time and risks, and tap information residing in diverse back office systems.

cEverything (http://www.cEverything.com), which is pioneering the scaleable delivery of a suite of real-time management applications to small businesses over its virtual private broadband network, has chosen Siebel's eBusiness applications to enhance its sales and service across multiple channels, including the Web, call centers, field offices, and reseller networks. cEverything is working with IBM to not only implement the Siebel solution, but has also chosen IBM's DB2 Universal Database and IBM Netfinity servers as the platforms on which to deploy Siebel's eBusiness applications.

"In order to support our aggressive growth plans, cEverything needs to focus today on delivering the optimal experience for our customers, whenever and however they choose to interact with us, said Glenn Bachellor, CEO, cEverything. "We chose to standardize on Siebel Systems and IBM for our entire customer-facing organization because they offered the most compelling solutions and the deepest commitment to our overall success. Given today's rapidly changing and highly competitive business environment, it's key for us to partner with companies with the unrivaled reputations for excellence and customer service that IBM and Siebel have."

Pioneer Standard's KeyLink Systems, (NASDAQ: PIOS) an IBM Business Partner and leader in value-added distribution, has implemented Siebel Sales and Siebel eChannel as part of a completely integrated CRM, business intelligence and enterprise resource planning system. The solution helps Pioneer improve communications between its call centers and field offices and provides easy access to real-time customer data.

"We view our Siebel implementation as a competitive advantage because our employees can quickly access data and service our customers more effectively," said Bob Bailey, senior vice president, Pioneer Standard. "We have found a great deal of interest in sharing data with our network of solution providers, including an online catalog, collateral information, proposal assistance and other e-business enhancements."

CRM is a set of business processes an organization performs to identify, select, acquire, develop and retain its most profitable customers and to better serve them. IBM places the CRM opportunity at $10B this year and growing at 23 percent annually. Mid-sized businesses, or those with 100 to 1,000 employees, account for significant demand in CRM solutions and are one of the industry's fastest-growing customer segments

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. The IBM- Siebel alliance is part of PartnerWorld for Developers, a worldwide program designed to help software developers reach broader markets, lower their costs of doing business, and take their products to market faster. Developers may contact IBM at http://www.developer.ibm.com.

About Siebel Systems

Siebel Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEBL) is the world's leading provider of e-business applications software. Siebel Systems provides an integrated family of e-business application software enabling multichannel sales, marketing and customer service systems to be deployed over the Web, call centers, field, reseller channels, retail and dealer networks. Siebel Systems' sales and service facilities are deployed locally in more than 28 countries. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.Siebel.com.

(a) Represents all trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Siebel Systems, Inc.

(b) Represents all trademarks and/or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp.