With its eye firmly fixed on rival Salesforce.com Inc., Siebel Systems Inc. unveiled OnDemand Release 6 of its hosted CRM suite of applications last week, the first industry-specific version of its hosted software.

The four prebuilt applications include CRM Financial Services Edition, High Tech Edition, Life Sciences Edition, and Automotive Edition.

Siebel?s traditional on-premise apps include 23 industry-specific solutions, from which Siebel draws for its CRM OnDemand.

In contrast, Salesforce.com does not offer industry-specific solutions and instead relies on its Customforce platform to allow companies to build customized CRM apps.

Sheryl Kingstone, program manager at The Yankee Group, lauded the new solution, saying that Siebel has gone deeply into territory management and forecasting with its built-in Sales Guidance feature.

?At each stage of a sales cycle, (Sales Guidance) recommends actions and brings up relevant content or case studies,? she said.

Siebel CRM OnDemand Release 6?s industry-specific solutions are priced at US$100 per user, per month.