SugarCRM outsources development& sales

Filed in archive Technology on February 9, 2005

SugarCRM is a wonderful piece of software. Well not so much different than any other CRM system but pretty good and open-source. How does SugarCRM as a company thrive on it, well it has a) essentially outsourced development trough many developers advancing the system for free and b) is not selling anything. Ahh right - it seems more anti-rhetoric to hyperbolic Marc Benioff:

"Roberts asks, "Why can't the best product win, rather than who spends the most on marketing and sales?" He boasts about never having made a face-to-face sales call. "We have disruptive business model because our focus is on building a great product, not on marketing." His anti-marketing stance and talk about disruptive models sounds a bit like, well, marketing."

Roberts is inferring that salesforce.com has marketed its way to stardom with a product that's inferior to SugarCRM. It sounds more like a 3 for 1 marketing attempt: 1) Rationalize a lack of funds for marketing and sales, 2) tweak competitors, and 3) stimulate a viral marketing effect. Fundamentally, it's not credible. Spending on marketing adds cost to products, but doesn't make them unholy.

SugarCRM is a free download, and it contains 85 percent of the code in Sugar Professional, which is $239 per user per year and uses the Mozilla Public License. The annual fee includes premium forums; updates and patches; day-time technical support by e-mail or phone; and commercially licensed Sugar extensions and templates. SugarCRM is also available as a hosted application for $39.95 (why not $40, to be transparent?) per user per month, with a minimum of three months and five users. Salesforce.com Professional starts at $65 per user per month, and the company also offers Enterprise and Team editions."

Via Roland Tanglao