Photo courtesy of Fabio Grande, Poker SpA
About the Author: Ron Buchanan is a BrainSell Sr. Technical Engineer. He’s a certified Sage SalesLogix master developer and has recently been thrust into the world of SugarCRM. Ron recently attended a SugarCRM code sprint. This is his take on Sugar as a company and platform.
SugarCRM is OPEN!
To me, one of the biggest differentiating factors between SugarCRM or say SalesForce or NetSuite is that it is an OPEN architecture. So OPEN , that the product managers of SugarCRM invite over 50 developers from around the world to participate in what they call the SugarCRM CodeSprint. There are three CodeSprints planned already during the first 6 months of 2012 ( in Belgium, the US and the UK).
In the last session I attended, the theme was “The First 30!” A sprint to improve the perception of SugarCRM in the first 30 minutes a user touches the product and the first 30 days the user tries the product. The goal… to create features than can enhance the user experience.
During the CodeSprint and the opening session, the partner sponsor and developers create lists, lists and more lists. These lists are of the good, the bad and the ugly. Features within the product that are lacking functionality, features that need improvement or features that enhance the product. The numerous list items are boiled down to an actionable project list.
Within TWO DAYS, with the developers working almost 24×7, they immerge from their sessions with fully operational enhancements to be included in the next general release of the product.
So why the excitement? It’s my opinion that no other CRM provider is doing this in a manner that SugarCRM is developing. And because the other CRM systems are not built on Open Architecture, the feature functionality availability will never come at the speed of SugarCRM!
The next SugarCRM CodeSprint session theme is “Spring Cleaning”… I can’t wait to see what develops!!
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Hi guys.
I’ve had the honor to be invited at the SugarCRM CodeSprint in Munich (it was October 2011).
A great experience, for sure, for many reasons.
First of all, they are great days spent with amazing developers from UK, Italy, France, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal… Wow!, a lot of people from everywhere.
Actually You work 24 hours a day. Just like when we (I) were (was) young !!!! And this is really funny…
People from SugarCRM, well… they are simply amazing. They make You feel like at home.
Unfortunately I won’t take part in the next CodeSprint, due to high loads at work…. And I won’t be at SugarCON this year, for the same sad reason. But I would invite You to go : they are amazing experiences… Most of all the SugarUNCON: with a captain like John Mertic, the SugarCRM Community Manager, it’ll be a success. Guaranteed.
Cheers
FabioG
Comment by Fabio GRANDE — January 23, 2012 @ 8:28 pm