Two years after scrapping its Sales.com hosted CRM offering, Siebel is predicted to re-enter the space in order to target smaller companies, according to a leading market analyst.

"Our due diligence suggests that Siebel is likely to introduce a hosted (customer relationship management) offering, to be called Siebel OnDemand, by year end," predicted JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens. "We also believe Siebel is adding hosted CRM (customer relationship management) because it finds it cannot compete on price.”

Since the demise of the Sales.com initiative in 2001, rival salesforce.con has enjoyed considerable success in the hosted applications market. Walravens said he expects former Salesforce.com vice president Ken Rudin to head up the new Siebel business.

Meanwhile Canadian firm Accpac International has unveiled ACCPACcrm.com, its hosted CRM initiative, along with upgrades to several of its products, including the Pro Series and Advantage Series accounting packages.

Accpac President and CEO David Hood said: "There are four requirements for our products. They need to cross country borders. They need to integrate out of the box. They have to meet the requirements of SMBs, and they need the support of a global SMB channel."

According to research firm Aberdeen Group, worldwide spending in the online CRM space is expected to increase to $1.99 billion in 2006 from $189 million in 2002.