Alumnus Tom Siebel

ZDNet (April 17) -- Tom Siebel's C3 IoT has 20 customers, an Internet of things platform that is operating at scale and a penchant for taking on giants such as General Electric's Predix. An Illinois CS alumnus and campus benefactor, Siebel, CEO of C3 IoT, has experience landing big accounts and taking on giants. At Siebel Systems, Siebel popularized CRM and then sold his company to Oracle. Before starting that effort, Siebel was among Oracle's best sales leaders. Those stints, along with four decades of enterprise application experience, give Siebel an interesting view on the Internet of things possibilities. C3 IoT is a relatively new name for Siebel's company, which previously focused on energy-related customers.