Oracle On Demand CRM Software Review

Price and Service Offerings

Oracle CRM On Demand is offered in two different infrastructure delivery options. The product was designed to be delivered in a multi-tenant data center environment, which means that multiple companies will share the same core application, database, servers, and network connectivity. Recently, Oracle has begun to offer the same core CRM in an isolated tenancy model, which provides separate and distinct environments for each customer.

The multi-tenant service has a list price of $70 per user per month. Oracle discounts this price based on volume of seats and the “status” of the customer. Oracle will always discount to acquire a marquee name. Our experience and research indicates that, like many other publicly traded software vendors, the end of a quarter is the best time to negotiate with Oracle as they are highly focused on current earnings. Realistically, the price seldom is discounted below $60 per user per month, and that often comes with the requirement for a very strict three year contract. This pricing is in line with other CRM vendors for SFA functionality only. Considering that SFA is Oracle CRM On Demand’s strong suit, this is an affordable option if marketing and customer support are not essential to your CRM project.

For organizations that require the greater security and performance of a dedicated environment, Oracle CRM On Demand is offered in isolated tenancy but these advantages come at a steep price. The isolated tenancy adds $55 per user per month to bring the total list price to an hefty $120 per user per month. This pricing is a premium aimed at competing directly with the majority of SaaS CRM providers that do not provide this more secure option. For example, Salesforce.com, the recognized industry leader in SaaS CRM, does not even offer this option. The only other comparison that I was able to make for an isolated tenancy SaaS model is Aplicor CRM, which is delivered only using an isolated tenant model, and is list priced at $89 per user per month for what appears to be comparable functionality. While Oracle does discount this price, they tend to do so to a lesser degree given that it deviates from their core delivery model. While isolated tenancy ought generally to appeal to larger firms, at this price point for no real gain in functionality, it is a very costly approach.

If you are unsure whether hosted or on premise is right for your firm, you are in good company. Oracle’s own sales team struggles in positioning the on premise Oracle CRM products versus the on demand versions. This fact, coupled with Oracle’s larger issues of rationalizing the myriad of industry players that Oracle now owns (remember PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, Vantive, etc.), there’s no doubt that many of Oracle’s customers and prospects have redubbed their Fusion vision as “Confusion”. As one would expect from a parent company that derives massive revenues and profits from on premise data center operations, Oracle does little to “sell” the hosted model and quickly proposes the on premise solutions. In many ways, Oracle CRM On Demand is viewed as a defensive move for Oracle enterprise customers. Ideally, Oracle wants you to run its on premise CRM but will offer the on demand version to keep you from adopting another vendor’s product. We’ve heard of more than one large firm that has followed this path, only to convert to the on premise edition or to another vendor’s product when the shortcomings of Oracle CRM On Demand became evident.