SugarCRM is taking on Salesforce.com with a version of its service and software package that can be customized by partners: Sugar Platform Edition.

Platform Edition, lets OEMs, service providers, and independent software vendors tailor the Professional or Enterprise versions of its PHP suite and re-package them as part of their own offerings.

Larry Augustin, SugarCRM’s chief executive, said in a statement the OEM edition would serve a growing partner base. This version means potentially shorter development time and faster and easier upgrade for those hanging on the suite.

“Sugar Platform Edition allows our growing OEM partner base to bring the power of flexible, intuitive and open software like Sugar to a vastly underserved market,” said Larry Augustin, chief executive officer of SugarCRM. “It is a great win-win scenario: customers receive best-in-class software while our OEM partners build a profitable and repeatable business.”

Unlike Salesforce, which can only be deployed on a proprietary cloud database, partners can run SugarCRM on Sugar’s own hosted platform, on their own services, on the Amazon cloud, or on Microsoft’s Azure cloud. Or – if they’re old school – partners can install Sugar on-site, as it also comes as a boxed product.

Salesforce.com is clearly in SugarCRM’s cross-hairs.

A key difference between customizing Sugar and Salesforce is the openness of the code: Sugar is built using PHP, but Salesforce uses the company’s own, proprietary Apex programming language which runs only on the Salesforce platform.

For more information, read Sugar’s Press Release on Platform Edition.