New to Sugar but not to CRM

[netlion]

Having 10 years experience in ACT! and Sage CRM amongst others this is my first look at Sugar as I notice that it gets a mention more frequently than it did and I need to learn a little more. Looked around the site and resources and I see that it draws in a wide community, reflective of the open architecture.

Always attractive is a paper titled 'CRM Vendor Pricing : A Comparative Analysis' so I took a look at it.
In general it is a worthwhile paper, well laid out and arguments simply put, but oh doesn't the bias show!
While listing ACT! as one of products considered as CRM vendors in the overview and stating ; "a comparative price analysis of leading CRM providers." It is followed up with; "This product is designed for individual use and will not be considered in this study". Really?

As a provider of ACT! solutions of and been involved with with sites of 50 users and above I can assure the audience that it isn't easily dismissed. How unfortunate that the author of the paper does both the product and themselves such a disservice. The question is why? Is ACT! such a significant pain in the side to Sugar that it should be ignored so Sugar Professional can be trumpeted as the leader in terms of TCO?

As a new visitor what message do I take from this? Think about it, not all people reading the literature comes uninformed. This sort of practice does nothing to help the Sugar cause particularly being passed off as a semi-authorative, so called White Paper.

Sugar CRM looks like it has some good features that ACT! doesn't have - but don't do evil, just get on with building a great product.

[Angel]

but don't do evil, just get on with building a great product.

On that note, we also shouldn't assume that the omission of something is indicative of some malicious/devious action.

One of the comments I regularly hear from people moving from ACT!, GoldMine, Maximizer (or similar apps) to Sugar is that they are looking for something with a web based architecture, which none of those products meet. i.e. People trying to move away from desktop applications.

[netlion]

Excuse me. The article is factually incorrect. Any question of it being of derogatory intent would be assuaged by the author addressing the misleading information. I challenge the author to correct it.

ACT! is available as both desktop and a web product. It was first available in late 2004 as ACT! Premium for Web as the first online release, predating SugarCRM I believe.

[Angel]

I believe there were web enabled versions of ACT! going back even further than that, but we are splitting hairs as my main point was twofold:

1. A mistake by someone (author or whoever else) doesn't equate to some purposely malicious action, i.e. evil. People make mistakes.

2. ACT! has traditionally been focused on the lower end of the market. It wasn't until 2004 or so that they introduced an SQL version. Sage CRM is a more direct competitor to Sugar than is ACT! and that's mostly based on the manner in which Sage itself positions the products, not what Sugar thinks about them per se. Thus it makes sense that Sugar would more directly respond to that. It is not an indicator that they are somehow afraid to talk about ACT!, etc.

[netlion]

The content of the paper is not a mistake, it is patently obvious that it reads as the author intended.

It isn't Sage alone that determines which products compete, it is somewhat of a facile argument, with databases such as SQL leveling the playing field of scalability. ACT! is a SQL product as is Sage CRM, if chosen, either can be good choices dependent on customer requirements and budget. So within a vendors own product offerings two products can compete, while possibly pitched to different market segments. Such is the extent of product customisation capabilities that boundries are not as clear cut as they were 10 or even 5 years ago. So sorry ACT! is a clear competitor to SugarCRM as is Sage CRM, it entirely depends on the customer requirements and projected growth. There are obviously situations where SugarCRM would prevail but you can't, with legitimacy, blatantly dismiss ACT! as a contender.

[Angel]

So sorry ACT! is a clear competitor to SugarCRM as is Sage CRM, it entirely depends on the customer requirements and projected growth. There are obviously situations where SugarCRM would prevail but you can't, with legitimacy, blatantly dismiss ACT! as a contender.

This is why I stated "a more direct competitor," when referencing Sage CRM, as opposed to "the only competitor that should be considered."

Your point is a valid one, but I think you are reading a little too much into this matter.