CRM Industry Consolidation History
The consolidation recap belows shows how this industry is morphing into a very large market place being served by fewer and fewer players.

Oracle

• Oracle acquires Siebel Systems for $5.85 billion (September 13, 2005). Siebel has previously acquired BoldFish, Inc., Janna Systems, nQuire Software, OnLink Technologies, Paragren Technologies and UpShot
  • From the CRM SaaS perspective, the main story here is the evolution of Siebel's acquisition of UpShot (for $70 million on October 15, 2003) which later evolved into the Siebel OnDemand product line
• Oracle acquires PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion (December 13, 2004). PeopleSoft previously acquired JD Edwards, Vantive, Annuncio Software and Calico Commerce. JD Edwards had previuously acquired YOUcentric

SAP

• SAP acquires OutlookSoft (May 8, 2007) for their business performance solution software (probably in response to Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion)
• SAP acquires 50% of sales force automation software maker K&V (Kiefer & Veittinger) (December 15, 1997)
• SAP acquires Visiprise manufacturing software to expand the company's ERP and manufacturing execution system (July 2008)

Microsoft

• Microsoft acquires Navision Software for $1.45 billion (July 11, 2002). Navision had just recently acquired Axapta
• Microsoft acquires Great Plains Software for $1.1 billion (December 21, 2000). Great Plains had just previously acquired Solomon Software, RealWorld Software and FRx

Salesforce.com

• In January 2011, Salesforce.com announced its acquisition of online web conferencing and meeting service provider, dimdim for $31 million. It's expected that dimdim will be folded into chatter to provide additional collaboration capabilities.
• At DreamForce 2010, Salesforce.com announced the definitive agreement to acquire Heroku for $212M, a 30 employee company and Ruby platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution that powers more than 105,000 social media and cloud applications and will be rolled into Salesforce's cloud product suite.
• In August 2008, Salesforce.com acquired knowledge management company InStranet for $31.5M. The on-premise call center software was converted to the multi-tenant SaaS model and rebranded as the ServiceCloud2 Knowledge module. InStranet's founder, Alex Dayon, has since taken the rains for the company's customer service and support operation.
• In March 2007 the company acquired content management system maker Koral Technologies, again for an undisclosed sum and without announcement. The acquisition of this nine person startup and their AppExchange product culminated in the Salesforce Content solution.
• In January 2007, Salesforce.com acquired CrispyNews also for an undisclosed sum. In fact this acquisition actually went unannounced for several months. The acquired technology later became the much publicized Salesforce.com Ideas social media solution.
• In August 2006, Salesforce.com acquired PPC/adwords integration startup Kieden for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition of the four person company resulted in the rebranded Salesforce for Google AdWords solution.
• Salesforce.com acquires Koral Inc of San Mateo, CA, a 9 person company and maker of a content management application; Terms not disclosed (April 10, 2007)
• Salesforce.com acquires wireless developer Sendia Corp, a 35 person company, for $15M in all cash deal (April 11, 2006)

NetSuite

• NetSiute acquires OpenAir, a 56 person professional services automation SaaS company, for $26 million (June 2008)

RightNow

• RightNow acquires SalesNet, a 26 person CRM SaaS company, for $9 million (May 22, 2006)

Consona (previoiusly M2M (Made To Manage) Holdings)

• M2M acquires Onyx (Nasdaq: ONXS) in $92M cash deal (June 2006)
• M2M acquires Knova Software for $47M (December 18, 2206)
• M2M acquires Encompix, AXIS Computer Systems, Capri Corp, ADS Information Systems products and DTR Software International

CDC (Chinadotcom) Software

• CDC Software, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Chinadotcom, acquires Saratoga Systems in April 2007
• CDC acquires Pivotal (December 2, 2003), who previously acquired Exactium, Humongus and MarketFirst

Infor

• Acquired daly.commerce, Extensity and Systems Union. daly.commerce had acquired MarketMax. Systems Union has previously acquired Lasata which had acquired the popular F-9 analytical tool.
• Acquired SSA Global Technologies. SSA had acquired Baan, Elevon, Ironside Technologies, Max International, interBiz Product Group, Infinium Software EXE Technologies, Arzoon, Marcam, Boniva and E.piphany
  • Infinium had acquired Dexton Information Systems
  • Baan had acquired Aurum Software. Aurum Software had acquired Antalys Corp
  • E.piphany had previously acquired Octane Software, Moss Micro and RightPoint

Sage

• Acquires ACCPAC CRM (and renames it to SageCRM) which had previously acquired eWare
• Acquires SalesLogix, which had previously acquired ACT!
• Acquires TeleMagic

Maximizer Software

• Acquired Tracker and Cognitech (SharkWare)