January 30thSugarCRM Unveils Analytics and Multi-Channel Marketing
Christopher Kenton
[tag]SugarCRM[/tag] just keeps bringing on more reasons for companies to consider OpenSource CRM. Although Yankee Group estimates Sugar’s market share at only 1%, eclipsed by up-market proprietary software providers like [tag]SalesForce.com[/tag] and [tag]SAP[/tag], SugarCRM continues adding to an array of enterprise class features priced cheaper than the competition–potentially vastly cheaper if you have a savvy engineering team.
SugarCRM bills itself as a “commercial open source” provider, which means they have built a platform and development community around an open source product that anyone can download, use and hopefully enhance, all for free. They also provide commercial products with Professional and Enterprise editions, including on-demand versions. They’ve built a reputation for highly customizable and powerful software, backed not only by the company, but by a large community of thousands of passionate developers. They say their typical clients are small businesses who don’t want to pay the high cost of other CRM solutions, and large enterprise businesses with significant customization requirements. They haven’t been much of a threat to Salesforce, Siebel or even Microsoft, with whom they now partner, but their success in building strong products and buzz may change that.
The latest additions to Sugar 4.5 include Multi-Channel Marketing and Business Analytics modules. The Multi-Channel Marketing module offers campaing creation and tracking across channels, a web form for capturing leads, and ROI reporting. The Business Analytics Module, which is only available in the commercial additions Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise, provides advanced data filtering and customizable reports. It’s unclear if or when this module will filter down to the Open Source product.Â
You can play around with the on-demand SugarCRM product directly online at demo.sugarondemand.com .
[tag]SugarCRM[/tag] just keeps bringing on more reasons for companies to consider OpenSource CRM. Although Yankee Group estimates Sugar’s market share at only 1%, eclipsed by up-market proprietary software providers like [tag]SalesForce.com[/tag] and [tag]SAP[/tag], SugarCRM continues adding to an array of enterprise class features priced cheaper than the competition–potentially vastly cheaper if you have a savvy engineering team.
SugarCRM bills itself as a “commercial open source” provider, which means they have built a platform and development community around an open source product that anyone can download, use and hopefully enhance, all for free. They also provide commercial products with Professional and Enterprise editions, including on-demand versions. They’ve built a reputation for highly customizable and powerful software, backed not only by the company, but by a large community of thousands of passionate developers. They say their typical clients are small businesses who don’t want to pay the high cost of other CRM solutions, and large enterprise businesses with significant customization requirements. They haven’t been much of a threat to Salesforce, Siebel or even Microsoft, with whom they now partner, but their success in building strong products and buzz may change that.
The latest additions to Sugar 4.5 include Multi-Channel Marketing and Business Analytics modules. The Multi-Channel Marketing module offers campaing creation and tracking across channels, a web form for capturing leads, and ROI reporting. The Business Analytics Module, which is only available in the commercial additions Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise, provides advanced data filtering and customizable reports. It’s unclear if or when this module will filter down to the Open Source product.Â
You can play around with the on-demand SugarCRM product directly online at demo.sugarondemand.com .