SalesLogix

SalesLogix - is one of the most popular CRM systems. And Sage (Saleslogix developer) always used to follow CRM market trends to keep its product competitive. In 2007 they unveiled SalesLogix web version (on ASP.NET) that optimized the software performance and provided suitable web access. And now when the "cloud fashion" came, Sage announces cloud SalesLogix edition that will be available in early 2010. In general, its not a revolutionary step: it will be the same old single-tenant SalesLogix, installed on Amazon EC2. Each customer will use an individual copy of the software. But the most interesting is how Sage introduced this new service.

Joe Bergera, Sage CRM exec, says: "It's not SaaS, it's the next generation of CRM software. First generation SaaS systems restricted the ability to customize and didn't provide users full control over their data. Now, in the Cloud computing era, companies can rent cloud CRM for a monthly fee and manage it like the traditional software. They don't need to worry about regular updates that may cause unwanted changes - now they can install updates when they need them..."

But it seems, that Sage now protects this rent model only because they can't create a multi-tenant SaaS offering. Long ago in 2005 they wanted to bit Salesforce with their Sagecrm.com (SalesLogix little sister) that also uses the single-tenant cloud scheme. But it haven't succeed  in competition with Salesforce's SaaS CRM.

Besides, a year ago Sage tried to launch SaaS version of its accounting suite - Sage Live. But this project was denied because of unsolved security problems.

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