Conway’s appointment is interesting as Salesforce.com gears up to do battle with Redwood Shores-based Oracle in the CRM arena. Oracle bought Salesforce.com’s biggest rival Siebel Systems in September for $5.8bn.
During his reign at PeopleSoft, Mr Conway had likened Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison to a ruthless warlord and fought tooth and nail against the proposed acquisition for over a year until he was sacked in October 2004.
At the time PeopleSoft’s board cited a loss of confidence in his ability to lead the company. Mr Conway’s departure paved the way for Oracle’s $1.1bn acquisition of the company three months later.
At PeopleSoft Mr Conway had also dismissed Salesforce.com as an inconsequential player. During a 2003 interview with the press he described the ASP-upstart as a a small company that sells services to other small companies.
Curiously, Mr Ellison holds a small stake in Salesforce.com. He admitted last month he would sacrifice his investment if it meant that Oracle could overtake Salesforce.com in the hosted CRM market.
Charles Phillips, who seems to be the new mouth-piece at Oracle, stoked the competitive flames further last week by saying that its was Oracle’s intention to crush Salesforce.com in the CRM arena.
Mr Conway has kept a pretty low profile since his departure. His short-term replacement at PeopleSoft, co-founder Dave Duffield, is also ready to take on Oracle once again with a new business venture.
The specific product details of Mr Duffield’s new venture still remains shrouded in secrecy, but hints at challenging the ERP preserve of both Oracle and German business applications rival SAP AG.
Our focus is to tackle the traditional ERP markets, in a non-traditional way, reads a statement on Mr Duffield’s website (www.davesnextmove.com).
