Siebel moves toward self-repairing software

Siebel Systems is mounting an effort to alleviate a major hassle that comes with licensing its customer information systems--the labor-intensive task of tuning and tending to its software in complex computing environments. The San Mateo, Calif., company has signed up to use a set of programs from Motive, a company that specializes in minimizing software maintenance work. Other Motive customers include BEA Systems, Lawson Software, Mercury Interactive and PeopleSoft.

Motive's software enables other computer programs to install, diagnose and repair themselves, the company said. Its specialty is software that runs over the Internet and on a variety of hardware devices, from network servers to hand-held computers.