The new offering is specifically designed to meet the growing market demand for affordable CRM and it is much anticipated as Siebel's answer to salesforce.com's web-based offerings. Siebel and SAP have been leaders of enterprise-level CRM software but salesforce.com has been quick to capture many customers with its online software-as-service.

Individuals and companies can sign up for Siebel CRM OnDemand for a monthly subscription price of $70 per user at www.crmondemand.com and they are currently offering a 30 days free trial.

"IBM is widely recognized as a leader in providing secure and reliable services to its global customers and is therefore very well suited to manage mission-critical customer systems and data. IBM and Siebel have a long-standing partnership successfully delivering CRM solutions to more than 1,000 successful customers. Now, we are bringing proven CRM to a new class of users in a dramatically faster, easier, and more affordable way," said Thomas M. Siebel, CEO of Siebel Systems.

"Siebel's entry into the on demand era is truly an important development for our industry," said Mike Lawrie, IBM Senior Vice President and Group Executive, IBM Global Sales and Distribution. "This offering underscores our commitment to delivering joint on demand solutions for customers of all sizes through our network of business partners. Siebel's CRM leadership combined with IBM's strength in delivering business processes via the Internet makes for a powerful combination customers can rely on."

Designed for the on demand pricing, Siebel CRM OnDemand is as easy to use and configure as a Web site. It is an Internet utility with high-availability that enables users to start with a small CRM project, with practically zero start-up time, deploy rapidly, and grow the system as needs change over time. The on-demand aspect of the payment ease the budgeting for growth of CRM projects.

The solution enable users to manage contacts, sales opportunities, products, prices, competitors, events, marketing campaigns, and customer service requests on the Web. Helps organizations to generate sales leads, enhance lead qualification and management, improve sales forecasting, shorten sales cycles, and provide improved customer service. It also has built-in analytics to enable users to immediately act on relevant business, customer, and market events.

The announcements further extend a four-year global strategic alliance between the two companies, which has resulted in more than 1,000 joint customers so far.