SugarCRM offers biggest upgrade yet
SugarCRM has released the 5.0 version of its open-source customer relationship
management software following a long period of development and testing.
Sugar 5.0 features improvements in three main areas, according to the company:
a new on-demand architecture designed to improve security; tools that let nontechnical
users build custom modules; and an AJAX e-mail client that is compatible with
any server that supports the POP3 protocol. The release also delivers upgraded
dashboarding capabilities.
The software went through three beta cycles and was tested more than 30,000
times by members of SugarCRM's open-source community, said Chris Harrick, senior
director of product marketing for the Cupertino, California, company.
Harrick said the open-source development model allows software to be vetted
far more thoroughly than it can through an in-house quality testing team.
In-house teams "serve their purpose. They do a good job and they're hard-working
people. But [open-source provides] the wisdom of the crowd," he argued.
Harrick downplayed the fact that it took three betas to achieve a release-worthy
product. "I think it's really a result of our development process. We iterate
quickly and get it out there," he said.
The company has created a Flash
demo that walks through the new features in detail.
China Martens, an analyst with the 451 Group, said SugarCRM is looking to land
larger enterprise customers with the 5.0 release.
"This is the most substantial kind of project they've done. ... it was
really crucial for them to try and get this right," Martens said.
"We think it's good, but the bottom line is we want to see bigger users
for Sugar until we get really excited," she added.
In a space crowded by seemingly similar CRM offerings, SugarCRM has tried to
differentiate itself partly through fostering a user-friendly image, according
to Martens. The company's attitude, according to Martens, is, "Forget about
the technical guys, we're Sugar and you can configure us. We're friendly."
SugarCRM Professional in on-demand form costs US$40 per user per month.
IDG News Service
Symantec Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver industry leading Windows data protection and system recovery. Download this whitepaper to find out the top reasons to upgrade and how to get continuous data protection and complete system recovery.
Data and system loss — from a hard drive failure, malicious attack, natural disaster, or simple human error — can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Make sure you have a secure recovery strategy in place. Symantec's latest backup and system recovery technology can efficiently restore critical applications, individual emails and documents and even restore your entire system in minutes in the event of a loss.
Businesses face a growing challenge to ensure that the IT environment is properly protected. Backup Exec 12 integrates with other applications in the Symantec family of products, to complement your current data protection strategy, keep your data securely backed up and make it recoverable when you need it most.
Enterprise 2.0 Implementation
By Aaron C. Newman, Jeremy Thomas
Published by McGraw-Hill
Learn more!
Deploying Cisco Wide Area Application Services
By Zach Seils, Joel Christner
Published by Cisco Press
Learn more!
