Oracle-Siebel: Ellison's axe falls on 2,000 jobs

Oracle outlined its integration plans for Siebel Systems on Thursday, with 2,000 job cuts among the most notable tasks at hand.

Oracle, which closed its $5.85bn merger with Siebel last week, plans to cut 2,000 jobs across the Siebel and Oracle work forces, Oracle chief financial officer Safra Catz said during a conference call with analysts.

Catz said: "We will retain... Siebel's product development and product sales and marketing teams."

The layoffs had been expected, with many observers thinking the cuts would hit Oracle's customer relationship management (CRM) employees the hardest. Oracle had previously said it would use Siebel technology as its core CRM product.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said: "We will retain 90 per cent of Siebel's support, development engineers, sales and sales consultants. Most of the Siebel cuts will be in the back office and non-technical staff. The majority of the cuts will be Oracle people, not Siebel."

Ellison added that Siebel's sales force will remain intact as a separate CRM sales team, given that Siebel had a larger CRM sales group. Some Oracle CRM sales representatives will be folded into the group.

With the job cuts, Oracle will be left with a global workforce of 55,000. Delivery of the layoff notices has already begun and the bulk of the pink slips will be handed out in the next few weeks.

For Oracle, mapping out integration plans is becoming a common occurrence, as the database and applications giant continues its aggressive acquisition efforts.

The database and applications software giant is interested in snapping up middleware and business intelligence companies, Ellison said during an investment conference on Wednesday.

Last September, Oracle announced plans to acquire G-Log, a maker of logistics and transportation management software. And earlier in the year, Oracle won a bidding war for retail applications software maker Retek.

Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com