Sugar CRM goes on-demand with version 5.0 beta

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 28 August 2007 13:00

Business IT - Open Source

A beta release of a major new version of the Sugar open source CRM application will be available this week.

"Sugar 5.0 expands the proven Sugar platform with advanced CRM functionality, on-the-fly module creation, and a new on-demand architecture to help our thousands of users become even more successful," said John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM, the company behind the program.

Key changes include the inclusion of a new module builder that allows the creation of modules from scratch or by combining existing modules, improved access control, an AJAX email client with the functionality of a desktop mail program, and improved dashboards.

Companies hosting Sugar 5.0 on behalf of clients will benefit from the new on-demand architecture that gives each customer a separate instance to isolate their activity from others'.

SugarCRM offers the Sugar Community Edition under the GPL, plus two commercial editions. Sugar Professional provides additional features such as access control and campaign management, while Sugar Enterprise is able to accommodate a larger number of users through Oracle (9i and 10g) support and adds a self-service portal. The Professional and Enterprise editions currently cost $US275 and $US449 per user per year respectively.