SugarCRM adds mobile, collaboration tools
SugarCRM has updated its popular open-source customer relationship management software, improving compatibility with other web services and adding mobile and collaboration features.
SugarCRM 5.5, announced on Thursday, can be hosted on-site or bought as an on-demand offering called the Sugar Open Cloud, a line of business the company said it is trying to expand. In the area of on-demand CRM, Sugar competes with proprietary vendors such as Salesforce.com and Oracle.
The software adds an interface supporting 'Rest' (representational state transfer), a style of software architecture often used in web services. Rest support is designed to make it easier for SugarCRM to interact with services such as Amazon's Flexible Payment Services.
Other changes to the software's web-services framework improve performance and make it easier for third-party developers to create links to SugarCRM, the company said.
The software allows users to log in via mobile devices such as the BlackBerry or the iPhone, and the new release allows administrators to customise mobile users' interfaces. Administrators can use pre-built layouts or design their own interfaces, SugarCRM said.
Another new feature is the ability for several individuals to use the same CRM record, something SugarCRM said is intended to make collaborative account handling easier.
SugarCRM 5.5 was released in beta-test form on Wednesday, with a full release planned for the summer.