SugarCRM versus Salesforce
Let’s kick-off with a quick explanation of what a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) actually is and does. CRM applications enable businesses to learn about their customers’ needs and habits in order to build better relationships with them. A CRM application will store customer data and make it both actionable and reportable, enabling a business to become more aware of market trends and enhance its sales and marketing strategies.
SugarCRM and Salesforce are two of the better known CRM applications. Which is best? Phew! That’s far from an easy call.
In terms of features, both are pretty similar; pretty much everything that can be done with SugarCRM can be done with Salesforce, and vice versa.
SugarCRM is has a slightly more aesthetically pleasing user interface and is somewhat easier to navigate. But that’s simply my opinion (and we all know what opinions are like, right?).
SugarCRM certainly has more deployment options. Salesforce is strictly a software-as-as-service (SaaS) application whereas SugarCRM can be deployed as an appliance, as an in-house application or as a SaaS.
The real difference between Salesforce and SugarCRM is price. Salesforce starts from $9 per user per month for the most basic version but, to get the features that most business will need, they’ll need to pay upwards of $65 per user per month or $780 per user per year. SugarCRM, on the other hand, is open source - no, contrary to what many people think, that does not mean that it’s free! – and the on-site Professional edition costs $275 per user per year. In other words, you can get a version of SugarCRM that has pretty much the same set of features as Salesforce for less than half the cost.
Note that both companies offer special offers from time-to-time. For example, Salesforce is currently offering a $99 per user per year deal. While this may sound attractive, remember to factor in that you may well end up paying more in the longer term.
So, which is best? SugarCRM or Salesforce? While the products are pretty equal in terms of functionality and features, SugarCRM’s lower pricing and flexible deployment options make it an easy winner.
Cinch IT, a qualified IT Consultant can assist in the decision.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
What is IT?
What the heck is IT, anyway?
With the spread of technology comes the proliferation of arcane terms to describe it. But the acronym IT (as in “Boston IT consulting”) isn’t mysterious. It simply means “information technology.” What was once called “data processing.”
To process data in olden times, you’d drop pages (“hard copy”) into file folders and then deposit the file folders in a filing cabinet, doing so in alphabetical order to permit efficient retrieval. Backups might be accomplished via a mechanism called “carbon paper.”
Human beings still sort hard copy, of course. But now that small but powerful computers have become ubiquitous, we increasingly shuffle electrons to handle information. The machines and associated systems we enlist to achieve this are called “information technology,” or IT.
A formal definition is provided by the Information Technology of America, which reports that IT is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware."
IT is also the name we give to the professional field devoted to supporting information technology. Such support can sometimes be provided in-house (or off-site by computer companies who then ship a customer the result). But professionals like those who specialize in Boston IT consulting can help businesses to optimize the sometimes tricky tech to which they’ve entrusted critical information.
Information technology may be distinguished from, but obviously overlaps with, communications technology, which has evolved way beyond snail-mail or corded hand sets and land lines. A smartphone does it all. In the era of iPhone, many phones will send email, surf the net, and even run an array of software applications.
You might lump broadcasting and wireless technologies with IT generally and call it all “Information and Communications Technology” (ICT). But when your network starts hiccuping, you call somebody in IT consulting, not ICT consulting.
Friday, March 27, 2009
3/27 Boston IT Consulting News
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