Salesforce.com names ex-PeopleSoft chief to board

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Software maker Salesforce.com (CRM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday named former PeopleSoft head Craig Conway to its board -- adding an industry veteran with a long-standing and often bitter rivalry with Oracle Corp. (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive Larry Ellison.

Salesforce has been a vocal critic of Oracle as it seeks to carve out a larger share of customer relationship management software, which helps companies track sales, customer service and marketing functions.

Salesforce founder and chief executive Marc Benioff, also a former Oracle executive and former Ellison protege, said Conway's appointment was effective immediately and for a term that expires at the 2008 annual meeting.

Conway has led several technology companies including PeopleSoft where he was forced out by the board last year amid a hostile takeover bid by Oracle that eventually succeeded.

Conway came to PeopleSoft in 1999 from Oracle, where he had a rocky relationship with Oracle's flamboyant founder Ellison and once famously referred to his rival as "sociopathic."

That rivalry has extended to the battle between PeopleSoft and Oracle.

While Ellison was an early Salesforce investor and once served on the company's board, he said last month that he would gladly see his investment go to zero.

Later in September Oracle President Charles Phillips told a press briefing his company would rather "crush" Salesforce than buy the much smaller software maker.

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