OStatic

Technology companies negotiate a particularly messy obstacle course from the moment of conception -- jumping hurdles associated with venture capital, fending off and holding their own with fierce (and worthy) competitors, constantly changing and innovating products and services to meet the demands of the customer base. Open source companies have an additional complicating factor -- the business model is mysterious to many potential customers, and competitors (fierce, worthy, or otherwise) are often 800 pound gorillas with names and logos recognizable to CTO, CIO and Luddite alike.

Perhaps the silver lining for open source companies forging onward for larger market share is that they realized early on that adaptability is the norm, that weak points can become strengths if they're recognized and effectively addressed as soon as possible -- and that if a single open source company is unable to wrestle a significant percentage of the marketshare from an 800 pound gorilla, two or three 400 pound free software-touting orangutans can make a real impression.

Maybe my take on Open-Xchange's partnership with SugarCRM is more Animal Planet inspired than that of The VAR Guy, but it's very much in agreement. Open-Xchange has made its open source Exchange Server alternative -- and SugarCRM's open source customer relationship software -- infinitely more useful and appealing by facilitating data sharing between social networks, SugarCRM applications and Open-Xchange address books.

Open source collaboration platform vendor, MindTouch, announced a partnership this week with SaaS integration company SnapLogic to deliver Deki for CRM to customers who want to enhance the capabilities of customer relationship management (CRM) software like Salesforce.com and SugarCRM.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) applications are emerging as some of the best available applications for on-demand use. There are few applications that you can access within a browser that are more immediately useful. While many web workers use fee-based applications such as Salesforce.com, there is a growing crop of free alternatives. In this post, I'll round up two of these that are worth looking into.

Once you've figured out how to store your contact database, now you have to manage it effectively. Can you open your address book right now and pull up a name of a client, co-worker or vendor and at a glance see a record of every communication you've had with that person, including phone calls? Do you remember weeks later that you left a message that was never returned? Do you know whether or not you owe that person a phone call or note? Do you have a record of the fact that you sent them a package of materials last month? Do you link your business contacts together, so you can visually map relationships between them?