Pivotal Launches Micro-Vertical CRM Apps

Pivotal

The company is banking that these niches are big enough to be profitable. "These industries need a level of customization and specialization that molds the software to the business. A generic health-care package is not good enough," said Matt Duncan, vice president of marketing for Pivotal, based here.

Other vendors, notably CRM leader Siebel Systems, offer broader-based verticals, he said. "They take their horizontal application and recast it," he said.

Pivotal has worked with integration partners including Cap Gemini Ernst and Young on some of these implementations, said Len Zapalowski, vice president of business management at Pivotal. "We've done a lot of collaborative work in real estate and construction, for example. We have best practices, common customers and a deep understanding of the micro-vertical. When you look under the hood, real estate has a lot of micro-verticals within it," he said.

"If you take the humongous approach to creating software as the Siebels, the SAPs and PeopleSofts have done, they hit broad segments from the top down. We build our micro-verticals from the bottom up," he said.

Pivotal charges a premium on the micro-vertical versions of about $1,500 per seat, on top of the standard charges, with volume discounts available. The company's broader CRM application costs about $1,500 per seat now, Duncan said.

"Very few, if any, other vendors have really productized and verticalized a solution that's 80 percent there. Typically, the other vendors offer a standard configuration and hope it'll fit your business," said Jeff Halden, vice president of Cap Gemini Ernst and Young's CRM practice.