SugarCRM Announces Acquisition, Integration With IBM & Others In Social Business Expansion
- Published in Social & Mobile
Now serving more than 7,000 customers and 800,000 end users in 80 countries, SugarCRM used its SugarCon event last week to announce an acquisition and debut new additions to Sugar 6, all aimed at enhancing the company’s leadership position around “social business.”
During the event, SurgarCRM announced it has acquired iExtensions CRM from iEnterprises, Inc. for an undisclosed sum. iExtensions has been a leading CRM solution for IBM Lotus Notes, and in 2010 was the winner of the Best in Lotusphere Showcase award.
The newly acquired functionality adds enhanced support for IBM collaboration tools inside Sugar 6. The added features include native Notes support as well as Notes email and calendar plugins, and a connector to the IBM Domino product line.
Building on its new ties to IBM users, Sugar also announced the new IBM iSolution Edition for SugarCRM, an integrated solution that offers customers more control over their data, ability to leverage IBM investments and an open CRM solution powered by IBM systems for private and hosted cloud deployments. The integrated offer is designed to “provide maximum flexibility to clients across hardware, operating system and CRM application selection and delivery choices.”
SugarCRM also announced several other product extensions and connections including integration with leading applications from IBM, Google, Cisco WebEx, Citrix Online, and InsideView, as well as enhanced Sugar Activity Streams inside Sugar 6.
Building off the existing integration between Sugar and SalesView, the sales intelligence solution from InsideView, the companies are announcing a combined social CRM and sales intelligence solution. The latest edition of Sugar 6 will include SalesView pre-loaded into the system. This offers users the ability to tap into thousands of global data sources, as well as the vast universe of social media to gain relevant and actionable insight into their prospects and customers.
“A CRM system is only as good as the data inside of it,” said Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView. “By accessing real-time sales intelligence and relevant social information within Sugar 6, users can discover prospects, qualify leads, engage decision-makers, close deals and grow customer relationships more quickly. SalesView and Sugar together form the building blocks of a winning social CRM strategy for any business.”
“Today’s professionals are demanding business tools that enable them to work the way they want to work — in a connected, always-on world with fewer barriers,” said Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM. “No other CRM platform offers the breadth of social business and collaboration offerings in such an open and flexible manner.”
The company also announced new platform additions to Sugar 6, including support for simpler customization, wider database support, greater support for cloud-based deployments and eight new language editions of Sugar 6.
“Sugar 6 empowers our developer and partner networks to build new and innovative solutions on top of the world’s most flexible and scalable platform,” said Clint Oram, Co-Founder and CTO of SugarCRM. “From the smallest business seeking a fast, cost-effective cloud solution, to the largest enterprises seeking deeply customizable applications, Sugar 6 meets modern business issues without needless complexity or hidden cost.”
In addition, SugarCRM announced new capabilities that extend the mobile CRM capabilities of Sugar 6, include support for the Android mobile OS, the Blackberry platform, native iPad support, offline synchronization capabilities and a new HTML5-based charting engine.
“Today’s CRM user lives in an ‘always-on’ world, and we strive to meet the needs of today’s connected worker,” Oram said. “Support for leading mobile platforms like Android simply gives our customers the choice and control over their CRM deployments that they have come to expect from SugarCRM.”