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Siebel or Seibel?
When a technology company is large and well-known, and has an identifiable global presence as well as an expansive worldwide customer base, you could safely assume that the proper spelling of its name would be easily recognized by all. But unfortunately, that has not been the case with Siebel Systems. The former software giant’s moniker, which is a reference to its founder and long-time president Tom Siebel, is quite often misspelled as Seibel Systems.
In fact, this error is far more common than one might think. There have been many well documented instances where reputable, knowledgeable, and respected bloggers, freelance writers, editors, and other journalists have published the name incorrectly, printing it as Seibel Systems instead of Siebel Systems. Even many noted and widely read magazines and Web sites such as NetworkWorld and CRM2Day have been known to mistakenly use Seibel on occassion.
Back in the day, before it was acquired by leading rival Oracle Corp. in 2005, this frequent error must have caused more than a few headaches for the company’s staff members. For example, the marketing team likely had to double its efforts and expenditures on its search engine optimization programs, to make sure that both the correct spelling (Siebel) and the incorrect spelling (Seibel) of the name pointed all visitors directly to the company’s corporate Web site in Google, Yahoo, and the other major search engines.
The improper use of Seibel Systems may also have been a public relations nightmare, leaving those employees in charge of communications and branding constantly challenged to find new ways to ensure that the company’s name was spelled the right way each and every time it was referenced in the media. Additionally, one can assume that partners and clients often made the same error, using the incorrect spelling of Seibel Systems in contracts and on checks, causing high volumes of administrative re-work for staff in the financial department.
Now that Oracle has taken over the company’s reigns, things have not gotten much better. The company continues to use the Siebel brand name on many of the products it took over at the time of the merger, and finds that it is still often misspelled as Seibel by clients, partners, journalists, and other experts. This was particularly true during the media feeding frenzy that occurred when the two companies announced that the acquisition had been finalized. Many of the articles that covered the merger wrongly identified the organization as Seibel Systems.
So, how can one remember the proper way to spell Siebel Systems? One online blogger, who cited the common misuse of Seibel Systems as one of his major pet peeves, claims that the answer lies in the most basic of grammatical rules – i before e, except after c. By following this simple guideline we all learned in the first grade, it becomes clear that Siebel Systems, not Seibel Systems, is the correct way to spell the company’s name.
For more information about Seibel/Siebel Systems and other customer relationship management solutions, visit www.business-software.com.
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