I have to presume you know who SugarCRM is. But if you don’t, they are the most successful (by far) open source CRM platform. They have a lot going for them. They have a smart business model - one that engages a 30,000 plus developers community called the Sugar Network (which appropos of nothing, is also the name of a network of 16 entertainment and beauty properties for women) to develop on the core platform. They are open source but they are not free when it comes to licenses. There is a free basic edition, but if you want functionality and tools worth anything you will buy either their on premise or on demand versions - which are competitively priced, though not exceptionally so. In the past, I thought they were overpriced and in fact, with “The Cube,” their standalone server solution - they were - though it seems to be a little better now. They have a savvy CEO in John Roberts, who while he isn’t the best rock singer in the world (kidding, just kidding….) is a great CEO and very smart business dude. They’ve made some really great hires, for example, Martin Schneider, a former analyst for the 451 Group and a brilliant one at that, who ostensibly handles analyst relations for them but does so much more (and is a damn good rock guitar player). They have a rather fluid corporate culture that really lives the “open source” way and doesn’t hassle too much about things yet is still accountable for success in business. With their recent release of the SugarCRM 5.2 platform, they overcame their glaring lack of social features by adding a small set of social feeds and what they call Portal Dashlets, which is basically a treacly name for enterprise mashup widgets - something being offered by SAP, Microsoft and many other vendors too. What’s most interesting is that they are offering “cloud connectors” which are hooks to any feeds of a LinkedIn, Jigsaw or Hoovers nature - in other external data sources to provide what would be a richer look at competitive intelligence. These are the technical links, not the actual feeds to any one of them. Finally, they’ve added Sugar Feeds which is a Twitter like (really more Yammer-like or SAP ESME-ish) way of interacting inside SugarCRM applications - and provides status, alerts, and notifications. All in all, a good start, though, of course, a long way to go. These make SugarCRM a company to be watching with a more intense look in 2009 than you might have in 2008. Where I still have some concerns with SugarCRM are that they are competing now as much as a platform as they are a CRM application suite and which one is the focus they want to give is not entirely clear. Their market message gets mixed sometimes, though they seem to lean to flexible CRM suite. I think. Also they have a partner program, that while miles better than it was a year ago, is still not competitive with their competitors. They have a ways to go and they will have to expend a considerable effort in building that, now that they will be oh-so-much-more-appealing due to the economic downturn. Otherwise, I can’t complain. Open source gets really interesting in economic downturns but I have to put a caveat here - its really interesting as a possible option, but it not only isn’t free, its not that cheap either. Just reasonable. SugarCRM’s competition? Maybe VTiger and Concursive….there are several others but I don’t see them as all that competitive - at least not as of yet. VTiger comes to you from Zoho/Adventnet so they have some market smarts and reach. But no one outreaches SugarCRM in open source. This is a company that has made huge strides in the last two years and gone from me occasionally glancing at them during 2007 to, as 2009 begins, staring at them. Time to pay very, very serious attention.
Source:blogs.zdnet.com/crm
