SuiteCRM is a completely open source enterprise-grade Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application. SuiteCRM is a software fork of the popular customer relationship management (CRM) system SugarCRM.
Thanks to their successful effort in promoting the Bitnami contest to encourage their community to vote, SuiteCRM is now ready to install in a few clicks with the Bitnami SuiteCRM installers, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, Virtual Machine images (VMs) and cloud images for the Amazon EC2 and Azure clouds.
We also had the opportunity to interview Greg Soper, CEO of SalesAgility, who was kind enough to answer a few questions about the project.
How was the SuiteCRM project started? What are the origins of this project?
SuiteCRM is a fork of the SugarCRM project with a hugely expanded functionality set that competes with SugarCRM's Professional Edition and also with Microsoft Dynamics and SalesForce Professional. At its heart, SuiteCRM is 100% compatible with SugarCRM Community Edition with added modules for Workflow, Reporting, Portal, Products, Quotes, Contracts, Invoices, Teams and more.
SuiteCRM is completely open source from top to bottom and all code released by the project will be open source.
SuiteCRM was developed by SalesAgility, the world's longest established and largest independent SugarCRM Community Edition consultants. It was developed in response to SugarCRM announcing that they no longer wish to be involved in developing or supporting open source in the shape of their Community Edition. SuiteCRM is a complete replacement for SugarCRM Community Edition. Once SugarCRM stops supporting Community Edition in 2015, the SuiteCRM community and project are available as a tailor-made home for the millions of companies and users who have grown to depend on SugarCRM over the last 8 years.
What is the main goal for SuiteCRM?
The goal is simple: To be the most popular and most used CRM application globally.
What are some of the features of SuiteCRM?
It is an enterprise-class application that enables users to service their customers better, to understand their customers better, to respond to their needs more rapidly and to communicate with them more effectively. It is a complete Customer Relationship Management tool with an ecosystem of extensions and integrations to other applications such as Sage, MailChimp and Joomla.
Which projects or organizations are using SuiteCRM currently? What kind of projects do they use it for?
CRM is a horizontally applied business tool. It's functionality has high value across numerous sectors including governments, third sector, retail, manufacturing and services. Any organisation that services people or deals with customers can benefit. SuiteCRM is used by hundreds of thousands of organisations across the planet.
Our direct customers include governments, global manufacturers, healthcare, finance, distribution, legal, accountancy, distribution, pharmaceuticals, aquaculture, education and many others.
What do you expect will be the main benefits of having Bitnami packages available for SuiteCRM?
Without a doubt it's the ease with which it facilitates exploration of what can otherwise be a daunting and technical deployment. To have a complete working version of SuiteCRM in a couple of clicks without geek-level technical knowledge is convenience cubed.
Would you like your favorite app to be part of Bitnami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our monthly contest!