CRM (customer relationship management) software is imperative to every Web enterprise. If you're not using at least something, you're probably failing at successfully engaging your users and prospects.

While there are many CRM solutions on the marketing including market leaders SalesForce, my personal open source favorite has been SugarCRM. I'm not alone either - currently, over 60,000 businesses and 550,000 users around the world use on SugarCRM to manage customers. It's always been a genuine contender in the CRM space for a long time and by the looks of an announcement yesterday from the company, it keeps getting better.

SugarCRM has announced the availability of Sugar Express - an online hosted version of the popular CRM software aimed at individuals and businesses who need a low (or lower) cost solution. The solution runs on SugarCRM's on-demand computing platform - the Sugar Open Cloud - feauting functionality including Module Builder to create custom modules and Cloud Connectors to integrate third-party data services from companies such as Hoover’s and Jigsaw. Sugar Express is offered as an annual subscription at $499 for up to five users or $799 for up to ten users per year

“For all of its promise, the cloud computing movement is in danger of becoming yet another mousetrap to lock-in customers to proprietary vendors,” said John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM. “Sugar Express and the Sugar Open Cloud marry the seamless maintenance and deployment of on-demand computing with the values of open source: openness, portability and flexibility.”