News

Self-service consolidation

December 20, 2004

Line56: Siebel's recent acquisition of edocs highlights not only the importance of self-service category but also betokens the beginning of a new age of consolidation in this segment of customer relationship management (CRM), says Gartner analyst Esteban Kolski. "There are going to be 4-5 players left," he tells Line56. "The rest are going to be snapped up."

That indicates the maturation of self-service as a category. Kolski thinks of the space as having three components: content, context, and intent. Until now, vendors have concentrated on the first two. What's exciting now is the way in which self-service is beginning to "deduce" intent, Kolski says.