Open Source Vs. Professional

[rpmorgan]

Will someone please tell me the MAIN difference between the Open Source product and the Professional? besides what's listed here..

Obviously team management is important, but can it be added to the OS product ? Meaning is it possible to keep adding to the OS product to make it the equivalent of the Professional Product?

[longreach]

Can't say as I understand your question - the items they list there ARE the main differences between the various products.

And yes - if you were to add in the additional features - you could change OS into something like Pro.

[rpmorgan]

Basicaly my questions is, are the components that separate OS from Professional readily availble for installing in order to upgrade it to Professional functionality!

Can I stall a team management module or component?
Can I install an MS Outlook Integration component or module?
A campain mangement component module etc?
Quoting ? etc,. etc.. etc..

To rephrase the question.. can I and how easy is it to upgrade the OpenSource product to all the features of professional?

[oobat]

I have found that a lot of the features are avaliable to make the Open source version equal to the Professional.

If you're a smaller company and can wait for upgrades, then I would go with the open source version and look at sugarforge for the added features. The problem with this is when the sugar team improves and upgrades the SugarSuite application, the 'home made' modules won't or don't work, and you have to wait until somone upgrades the modules you're using. This isn't a bad thing, but could be if you're a cutting edge kind of person.

If you're a larger company, and always want the latest and greatest, then you best bet would be to go with the Professional version. They will maintain it for you, and will handle the upgrades.

Download the application, and play around with it, load the 'homemade' modules and see if you like them, you can always upgrade to the Professional version if you're finding you wanting more.

Craig

[rpmorgan]

Well I've got to tell you, I've been looking at the online demo at http://demo.longreach.net/index.php?...n&module=Users

and I find it a heck of a lot more appealing and having the features that I need that what's availabe with the only enterprise demo. So can you tell me if all of these modules are availabe for installation?

[blex2005]

We have a mix of customers that host solutions with us. Some are PRO and Some are OS.

What we find is if you need Reporting or Team management you really need Pro. Other than you can get away with OpenSource for awhile. If you need quoting or any module specifically not in Open Source then obviously that may make your decision. As you get more comfortable with what Open Source can do for you (or can't) you can always upgrade to Pro or implement changes to Open Source, depending what is more efficient for you.

As for enterprise you would typically look at this if you wanted Oracle or offline clients or more advanced built-in reporting.

If I understand more about your goals and business process I can probably help you find the right choice for your needs.