Siebel has wrapped up its worst first quarter in over five years, seeing licence revenue shrink to $75m during the period ending 31 March.

Total revenues for the CRM vendor totalled $299m, down nine per cent year-over-year. The company posted a net loss of $4m.

Licence revenues are considered a key statistic in gauging the company's future growth. In addition to licences, Siebel's revenue included services and maintenance.

"It was not the quarter that we would have liked," chief financial officer Ken Goldman admitted in a conference call.

Siebel fired its chief executive two weeks ago after reporting disappointing financial results, and appointed long-standing board member George Shaheen as his replacement.

The beleaguered vendor is being attacked from all sides. Oracle and SAP have eroded its business in the enterprise segment, and providers of hosted CRM suites, such as Netsuite and Salesforce.com, are competing strongly for the mid-market segment.

Siebel has a hosted CRM product that competes with Salesforce.com. This business unit was one of few bright spots in the quarter, showing an increase of 5,000 subscribers to 33,000. Salesforce.com boasts over 227,000 subscribers.

Shaheen has not yet given much detail about how he plans to turn Siebel around. But the new chief executive has repeated his promises to cut costs.