Open Source vs On Demand

[DebCorlet]

Hi everyone,

I'm brand new to SugarCRM.

My client has been recommended the SugarCRM program from a colleague of his who insists that you should go open source these days and I'm his new Virtual Personal Assistant and just wanted to check that if we go open source then we'll get support via this forum or elsewhere? I'm concerned that he has quite a lot of information to enter and keep a track of and then extract in groups as he requires to target certain markets in his CRM database. Since I'm new to his company (virtual and remote) I'm concerned that the program may get a little ovewhelming - so I'm wondering if I should try and convince him now for the On-Demand package as opposed to the Open Source.

I've used ACT! Version 6.0 (which he isn't fond of) before and said I'll try SugarCRM and see how I go but he's concerned he'll waste time and money on something and then after a few weeks (and a lot of data entry) I'll turn around and say I can't use it because it's too complicated and because we have the free version I'm not getting any support.

I've read a pamplet which says "Unlike people who download the Open Source version of Sugar and have to take care of the technical aspects themselves" ....

Technical I am not!!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Debbie Corlet
www.Deb-e-Secretarial.com.au

[longreach]

Hi Debbie -

There is definitely a need for some technical capabilities to run SugarCRM Open Source on your own server. Someone at the organization needs to be able to produce a working server on which to install the software, whose system software versions match the requirements of the application. And then someone needs to install the application - and potentially perform minor customizations to it via the Studio function to make it better suit the way you work.

After that, use of the application is pretty simple, via Firefox or IE web browsers on your PC or Mac. There is still an ongoing need to maintain that healthy server environment, however, and also you may need support with various usage questions you come across, or technical problems with your installation.

I would not count too much on these forums for commercial support - they are really aimed at people who are already at least semi-technical themselves. And most people here are volunteering their time - so it is not appropriate to count on these forums for support of a commercial installation.

If your organization has no technical resources to perform the above functions, better to go to an outfit like this - http://www.crmupgrades.com/ - for help with these sorts of support issues for SugarCRM Open Source. Or, as you say, to use the commercially hosted Sugar Pro On Demand service.

[DebCorlet]

Hi,

Thank you so much for your reply.

That's what I thought.

My organisation is just me ...... I'm a Virtual Personal Assistant who works from home around kids etc, so no technical expertise at all.

I appreciate the feedback and will go back to the client for a decision.

Kind regards

Deb Corlet
www.deb-e-secretarial.com.au

[Ram Kumar]

Hi Deb:

You also have to look at the features of SugarCRM Open Source. There is a great difference between SugarCRM Open Source and SugarCRM hosted / commercial version.

If your client needs to maintain products and quotes, SugarCRM Open source does not provide these features. If you find the features of SugarCRM Open Source fill your client needs, then as suggested above you need a supporting technical company for installing and maintaining SugarCRM open source.


Ram Kumar
Rhea Knowledge Technologies (P) Ltd
www.rheakt.com

[paikmoses]

Hi Deb,

Yeah, there's difference between Sugar OS and Sugar On-demand. The main add-on that is packaged with Sugar On-demand is Support.

There are many Sugar vendors who provide Sugar maintanence and support to your hosted Sugar instances. Then said, the feature difference is also there like Ouotes and Reports module, but again you can get these features from the Sugar vendors as developed modules for your organizations.

If you would like to discuss this further then just shoot me an email at mpaikpro@gmail.com

Looking forward....

Regards,

[Angel]

Approaching this from a slightly different angle, what is it about ACT! 6.0 that he isn't fond of?

It seems to me he needs to weigh out the pros/cons a bit more. Would he prefer you spend countless amounts of billable time trying to fix Sugar or learn Sugar just because he doesn't like ACT!'s UI or something equally superficial? Of course, it could be something a lot more in-depth, but you get my point.

[dafreakboy]

Deb,

You can go with a hosted version of Open Source but Sugar Professional is better for the following reasons:

Support: Professional offers support from live fully trained SugarCRM Support people. If you run into a problem with Open Source, you might have to wait a week or more to get a response to an Open Source question answered

Functional: Sugar Professional offers several advantages functionally over Sugar Open Source including
- The MS Outlook Plug-in which allow you to synchronize your tasks, emails, and calendar with SugarCRM from Outlook.
- Team Security - to limit what users can create, read, update, and delete. OS allows everyone to do everything.
- Workflow - to map your business processes and closely align those with your SugarCRM usage.
- Reporting - Sugar come out of the box with cross module reporting
- Quotes and Product Catalog - most businesspeople like to generate quotes and Sugar Professional creates these from product items specified within the Product Catalog.

Of course, you can always start using the Open Source product and then move to Professional or Enterprise when you are ready.

Kevin Jordan
RPS Technology
www.rpstechnology.com