13 April 2005 Business software heavyweight Seibel Systems has replaced its CEO less than a year after he was first appointed.

The surprise announcement that Mike Lawrie is to step down follows recent disappointing results as Siebel continues to flounder amid intense competition in the customer relationship management market it once dominated.

Lawrie, a former IBM executive, was appointed in May 2004 to revamp the embattled software maker, with founder Tom Siebel handing over operational controls, while maintaining his position as chairman.

His mission was to have been to make Siebel more customer friendly and flesh out its strategy for competing with hosted CRM providers such as Salesforce.com

Lawrie looks to have paid the price for dismal results for the quarter ending 31 March 2005.

His resignation was mutually agreed with Siebel’s board of directors. He will be replaced by Siebel board member and former CEO of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), George Shaheen.

In a statement Shaheen said: “The front office market opportunity is huge – estimated at $100 billion a year – and still largely untapped. We have the people, the product leadership and the customer delivery vision to capture it, and now we need to be unrelenting in our focus on execution.”