SugarCRM announced it has extended the capabilities of its mobile apps, deepened its relationship with IBM, and acquired iExtensions CRM.
SugarCRM has extended the capabilities of its social customer relationship management (CRM) software through new integration with applications from a bevy of industry heavyweights — including expansion of the company’s partnership with IBM, as well as SugarCRM’s acquisition of iExtensions CRM from iEnterprises, adding BlackBerry and Droid Mobile applications to its list of offerings. The announcements were made during the annual SugarCon conference last week.
President and CEO Jim Ward was interviewed about Sugar’s newest developments.
BrainSell was given the MVP and 2x 2010 awards at SugarCon 2011, for going above and beyond Sugar’s expectations and more than doubling their business in 2010. Read about it here.
To know more about Sugar’s latest developments and read the entire interview with Jim Ward, click here!
Recently, we’ve had prospects asking if SugarCRM can send text messages. “Ummmm Maybe,” was my response. It’s easy enough to check, I just went to Sugar Exchange and typed in SMS. Sure enough, there are two apps that allow users to text from Sugar.
“And why would you want to do this?” I asked the prospect. They organize poll workers at local elections and if there’s a storm or a change in meeting time, a text would be much more effective than an email, as most of the workers don’t have smart phones with email access. Makes sense.
From the Exchange listing… iZeno SMS module for SugarCRM allow users to send SMS to leads,contacts and accounts from detail view and list view manually or get SMS to be sent out to recipients based on the workflow conditions.
That’s what we love about open source, it allows for 3rd party developers to solve problems!
SugarCRM versus Salesforce.com. Again it’s the fast that eat the slow not the big that eat the small. SugarCRM provides a chatter-styled feature before any other CRM vendor has a chance to react to Salesforce.com’s Chatter.
We keep hearing the phrase “social CRM.” It has been an abstract concept, something for techies and thinkers to debate. That’s no longer the case. Here at BrainSell, when Social CRM comes up, I will defer to products like Qontext and Chatter for an explanation.
Recently, Salesforce.com made a nice addition to their powerful CRM tool; Chatter. It’s a collaboration tool for CRM users. It has features that are found in Facebook. Like “following” someone or something, such as a project, group, person or conversation. You can also share files with users easily.
Just a few months after Chatter was unveiled, Sugar shot back with a seamless integration with Qontext, a very Chatter-like tool.
Qontext For SugarCRM provides a social platform for SugarCRM users to collaborate with people at work from right within SugarCRM.
When Qontext is installed, it appears as a module on screen (see pic below). You can post messages within an opportunity, post files, assign activities, follow conversations and more.
There’s a free edition of Qontext (we’re using it at BrainSell and it’s very cool). You get a few more bells and whistles with the paid version, and support. More info on pricing can be found on their site.
When I talk to people about Sugar I am frequently asked to explain what difference (if any) open source (OS) makes. Usually the fact that a software application is OS means very little to the end user in their day to day work. (please no flames from any true believers who might read this post).
This month I saw a very real example of how OS makes a difference.
For proprietary CRM systems (like SFDC and MSCRM), the addition of an added feature requires a product management group to develop a plan, integrate that plan within the architecture, unit test, regression test, release in beta, create a release candidate, and eventually add the feature to a point release of the product itself. The process, if executed perfectly and without flaw or delay can take months. Sometimes years.
In the OS world, it happens much more quickly.
Sugar and its partners (like BrainSell) have heard for some time that customers want a collaboration tool within their CRM (much like Salesforce.com’s Chatter tool). Rather than develop the feature directly in Sugar, developers took an existing collaboration tool called Qontext and embedded it within the Sugar tool. This took weeks rather than months and let Sugar satisfy a customer need (and a competitive requirement) faster than any other product could.
How it affects the end user is obvious. You want something, you get it. Besides that, since you have access to the code (it is Open Source after all) you can add your own feature requirements. Think your add-on is killer? Sell it. You have that option with open source. Try writing a MSCRM add on without paying your dues to Steve Ballmer.
SugarCRM got clever this week at Salesforces’ convention, Dreamforce. Last year they cause a bit of commotion by spoofing Marc Benioff’s book, “Behind the Cloud.”
This year, they took a more festive approach. Sugar hired professional carolers to sing outside of the Mascone Center as people were filing into Dreamforce. The lyrics, created by the very witty Sugar Marketing staff, are very catchy.
Big development! Sugar has received overwhelming requests for their new iPhone app to work with Sugar Pro. They’ve revised the app to work with both Pro and Enterprise.
That’s right, SugarCRM has finally released their long-awaited iPhone app. The catch… it’s just for Enterprise users right now. Hopefully they’ll open it up to Pro users soon. For all of you Pro users, you can still access your Sugar instance via Safari, it’s made for the web, so it still looks awesome.
Ok, enough with the gottchas, here’s the good stuff…
You can view, EDIT, and easily search records from your phone
It’s FREE
Compatible with iPhone, iTouch, or iPad
When you place a call from a record, you can LOG THE CALL from your phone! Very nifty
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