'Net Features : sugarcrm

Choose Your Own Cloud with SugarCRM

Michael Garrity — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:10:00 GMT

Things are getting kind of cloudy for SugarCRM, the customer relationship management solution, as it has recently partnered with VMware to bring its vFabric Application Director 5.0 to SugarCRM clients.

VMware is one of the largest cloud infrastructure companies in the world, and by integrating its software into SugarCRM, it will allow organizations of all sizes choose the time of cloud environment that will help them best achieve their business goals as the use the CRM platform.

vFabric Application Director 5.0 is an application provisioning solution that reduces app deployment times from week-long processes to just a few minutes. It also allows VMware users to deploy any application into any cloud during the app’s lifecycle, including heterogeneous clouds.

By collaborating with VMware, SugarCRM is now able to offer its clients the ability to run their CRM service on-demand, on-premises or up in the cloud, and the vFabric Application Director makes it much easier for them to support the quickly increasing number of public and private cloud environments. When customers can use their CRM systems in a variety of cloud environments, it gives businesses an advantage as their organizations evolve and require different systems to operate efficiently.

Epicom Upgrades Hosting Packages for SugarCRM Users

Linc Wonham — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Due to the widespread popularity of SugarCRM, Web hosting services provider Epicom has announced its accelerated hosting packages designed specifically for users of the world’s leading open-source customer relationship management software.

The new, feature-rich Sugar 6 is currently on the market, and Epicom has doubled its server resources, increased security and performance and upgraded to a new data center to better sustain the most intuitive, flexible and open CRM software on the planet. The benefits of hosting the Sugar 6 software on Epicom’s hosting platform are the complete server, firewall and application management of any size system, automatic SugarCRM upgrades and the ability to deploy any SugarCRM customization or integration without compromising the security or performance of your system.

Epicom’s strong, four-method back-up policies, quick response and application of any security patches, and the ability to integrate with third-party systems allow users to get the most out of their SugarCRM systems. Additional upgrades to Epicom’s hosting platform include moving to PHP 5.3, MySQL 5.1, Ubuntu 10.4 and continuing its second year using virtual private server (VPS) Web hosting.

SugarCRM’s free and open source AGPL-licensed Community Edition was downloaded more than 200,000 times in the second quarter of 2010 by leading organizations such as Budget Rent-A-Car, H. D. Smith Wholesale Drug Company, ACE Asia Pacific, Robbins & Myers and Hunter Industries. Many customers upgraded to Sugar Professional Edition from Community Edition in the same period.

Open Source Testing Tools from SugarCRM

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:30:00 GMT

SugarCRM, the leading open source customer relationship management (CRM) software announced the release of several functional an dperformance testing tools under open source licenses for use with Web-enabled applications, including versions of SugarCRM’s applications.

“We empower our partners and customers to control their own destiny through an open development process,” said SugarCRM Chief Executive Officer Larry Augustin. “Earlier this year we opened up access to our source code repository. This is the next step in opening up more of our development process. By making our testing tools available, we are helping our partners and customers to assure that the development they do meets the highest standards for quality, stability and performance.”

Open-source projects released by SugarCRM include SODA – an XML-based testing framework leveraging Watir (an open source Ruby library for automating web browser interactions), SodaMachine – a graphical user interface (GUI) tool for creating, editing and debugging SODA tests, MeterMaid – an XML language that simplifies the process of writing Apache JMeter tests for the HTTP protocol, SugarMMM (MeterMaid Maker) – a utility for automatically generating MeterMaid XML for load testing against a given SugarCRM instance, and TidBit – a data generator for SugarCRM that is capable of generating massive amounts of data in a SugarCRM instance for use in scalability and performance testing.

“We are excited to leverage these powerful new open source testing tools for SugarCRM,” said Doug Guilbeau, managing director at Levementum, a SugarCRM Gold Partner. “These testing tools are yet another weapon in the arsenal that SugarCRM provides partners like Levementum to build and manage differentiated value-added solutions to our customers.”

SugarCRM Announces Sugar iPad App

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:23:00 GMT

Open source CRM software SugarCRM made what I consider a whopper of an announcement today at its SugarCon Conference - a customizable SugarCRM application for the iPad.

Features of the application included a quick view display to see the most urgent opportunities, important contacts and upcoming meetings. A Customizable Modules Screen wnables users to drag-and-drop their favorite modules to organize the app according to their needs. Data synchronization is also available so keeping contacts and other information synced between the iPad and the cloud will be possible.

“We’re pleased to announce a native application of Sugar on the iPad,” noted Larry Augustin, CEO, SugarCRM. “The ultra-portability and groundbreaking iPad user experience that is made possible for us as a web-based business by Appcelerator fits perfectly with the extensible SugarCRM architecture that can scale across multiple platforms. We believe that our mobile workforce customers will benefit greatly from the enhanced capabilities that this new platform offers.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of this announcement is that SugarCRM used Appcelerators Titanium open source platform for building the iPad applications. This will enable SugarCRM to port its application to other mobile platforms including Android and Blackberry by using a single Titanium codebase.

SugarCRM Announces SugarCon 2010

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:38:00 GMT

Open source customer relationship management (CRM) software SugarCRM announced that it will host SugarCon 2010, its global customer, partner and developer conference, April 12-14, at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Calif. I’ve been an advocate of the SugarCRM offering for years and recommend it to pretty much anyone looking for an alternative to commercial solutions Salesforce.

The theme for SugarCon 2010 is “Evolve Your CRM” and the $499 cost (early bird registrants receive a 40% discount if they register before February 13, 2009) covers conference keynotes, tracks and sessions on how to take advantage of trends like cloud computing, social networking and open source – impacting how companies attract and retain customers. To learn more, please visit: http://www.sugarcon.com.

“SugarCon has become one of the most unique and popular CRM conferences in the world and this year promises to be even better,” said Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM. “Whether you are a customer, partner, developer or just interested in learning about the future of business applications, cloud computing and open source, we invite you to spend three exciting days with us.”

Sweet! SugarCRM Hits The Road

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:43:00 GMT

Commercial open-source customer relationship management software (CRM) SugarCRM announced three new dates and destinations for its 2009 CRM Acceleration Road Show: September 15 in Austin, September 16 in Houston and September 17 in Denver.

CRM Accelerations are one-day, intensive sessions that help business leaders develop and implement a CRM strategy. These sessions provide attendees with a basic overview of customer relationship management and progress quickly into real-life demo scenarios, as well as interactive panels with members of the SugarCRM team of experts. CRM Accelerations are geared towards company leaders, both business and technical.

“CRM Accelerations help companies quickly see the value CRM can bring to their business, and how Sugar provides a unique and powerful approach to optimizing your key sales, marketing and support processes,” said Chris Harrick, vice president of marketing at SugarCRM. “These hands-on sessions provide the chance for customers to cut through the noise in the CRM marketplace and learn how to get up and running quickly.”

Sugar Express - SugarCRM's Online Hosted CRM

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:00:00 GMT

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.”