As Foes Stew, SAP Ascends

In fact, a note to customers by Gartner suggests that Siebel might be a good choice for companies that can't wait until the smoke clears to buy new software.

Can Siebel stand alone? "We are entering an era of dramatic consolidation. The winners will be the companies who sell broad portfolios," said Rod Johnson, vice president of AMR Research. Siebel, he said, is too narrow. It doesn't have the applications.

One solution: buy them. Companies like Lawson(LWSN Quote), a PeopleSoft competitor, or even JDEC, if the deal with PeopleSoft dies, would fit the bill, Johnson said.

The other alternative is less to Schmaier's liking: be purchased. Oracle in the past reportedly talked to CEO Thomas Siebel, a former Oracle executive, about a merger. And some analysts think IBM would be a great parent. After all, in an era of top-to-bottom software stacks, Big Blue still lacks significant presence in the application market. It would be a major change, of course, because IBM now teams up with application companies like PeopleSoft.

But if PeopleSoft disappears, why not buy Siebel. "In the long run, [IBM] could be the biggest winner of all," says Kingstone.