Take that, Benioff!

It seems executives at Siebel Systems are chafing at Marc Benioff's smug comments this week about its merger with Oracle.

Benioff, CEO of rival Salesforce.com, has been making hay over the deal, saying it's proof that his company is shaking up the software industry.

In retaliation, Siebel VP Bruce Cleveland lobbed a word bomb Benioff's way on Thursday. In an Email to reporters, Cleveland bizarrely repeats Benioff's most inflammatory remarks (e.g. "Marc infers that salesforce.com has been putting Siebel customers out of their misery for years.") and proceeds to critique them.

Then he adds: "Marc is running scared, and when he runs scared he attacks. Pending the successful close of the proposed acquisition announced Monday, Marc will face the following large and well-funded competitors in the next several months: Microsoft, which last week announced it will enter the hosted CRM software market; SAP, which has also announced it will enter the hosted software market; and Oracle....Let the fun begin!"

Umm, sounds like a blast.