SugarCRM 6 - cloudy open-source CRM

While the main competitors (Salesforce and Microsoft) entertain each other with the lawsuits, SugarCRM gradually strengthens its market position. Yesterday the company officially announced the release of SugarCRM 6. The major changes have affected the interface - it became much easier, more convenient and flexible. Users will be able to leave on screen only these elements that are used. The new convenient contextual search panel lets you view search results without leaving the current page, and the new recent pages panel makes navigation easier. It's interesting that the new interface is available only in payed (Professional and Enterprise) editions, but not in the free Community Edition. Because of this the company received another portion of critics, because it actively uses the "open-source" term for SugarCRM promotion.

SugarCRM 6 continued to move in the strategic direction - it has improved compatibility with cloud platforms. For Windows Azure system even has been certified (and it can work with MySQL, as well as with SQL Azure). As known, SugarCRM contrasts Salesforce's multitenant SaaS-model  with its cloud hosting model when the client installs CRM on a cloud platform, pays for it on a monthly basis and may customize it individually, benefiting from the open source. And SugarCRM Professional version costs $30/user/month + a couple of dollars for hosting on Amazon or Azure. While the functionally identical Salesforce Unlimited costs $ 250/user/month.

See also: Top 10 Online CRM software