DataSync Business News

DataSync, Inc is launching a new open source application which will integrate many of the popular commercially used open source applications into one streamlined suite.

Currently there are many open source applications which are great options compared to their proprietary competitors, but since each open source project is maintained by largely a different set of developers with different goals in mind, these projects do not work well with one another causing un-necessary data re-entry, duplicated functionality, and un-necessary multiple-logons.

DataSync is hoping to change all of this by creating a open source integration application which will allow popular commercially-used open source products such as SugarCRM, Joomla, KnowledgeTree, Zimbra to work with one another. The initial version of the application which will be released in the next few weeks will feature a unified logon system which will allow users of each system to logon to all of them with one set of credentials.

Future versions which that will be developed by DataSync staff and the open source community will feature much greater integration between the five open source applications. A full roadmap of features pending in future versions is available on the community section of the DataSync website. The system will also be modular, so users will be able to install and leverage only the open source tools relevant to them.

DataSync’s business model will be very similar to that of what SugarCRM is currently doing by providing the software for free, but providing hosting and support for the application for a nominal fee. DataSync staff hopes to accelerate the development of this project by increased participation in the open source community and the designation of additional development hours on the project by DataSync staff.

DataSync is hoping to get this project off the ground and developed at a very accelerated rate. The initial release code will be provided to the OSS community in the next few weeks and a number of open source developers have already expressed interest in working on the project.

Very few companies and organizations use static websites anymore. Almost everyone uses a database driven content management system to help organize their website, keep things uniform, and make it much easier to manage. There are tons of commercial and open-source content management systems available, but which do you choose? There’s PostNuke and its variations, Drupal, Plone, Joomla, and dozens more to choose from.

If you’re looking for a content management system that has a significant base of ready-to-go plug-ins and components such as forums, photo galleries, contact forms, directories and newsletters ready to go without a lot of custom web development, you should look no further than Joomla. Joomla’s wide adoption has meant that a lot of web developers have created a lot of free and open source plugins for use with the content management system and now the extensions that can be built have expanded dramatically because of the improved API built into Joomla 1.5

Joomla has always adopted the principle of extensibility, meaning that it is very easy to integrate additional functionality into the system, but the 1.5 version of Joomla offers a significantly expanded API so that developers can communicate with the Joomla Core system much easier and make better use of its functionality.

Before Joomla 1.5, there was no forum software available for Joomla, and developers had to do install other forum software such as phpBB and then do some rather un-elegant things to make them work together. Now there are forum tools that are written specifically for Joomla and install just as easy as any other component would.

Joomla 1.5 is still a relatively new product and developers are coming up with new and innovative plug-ins on a weekly basis, so only time will tell what these new application programming interfaces will allow developers to create, but there’s no doubt that Joomla has one of the best APIs available compared to any other content management system. If you’re looking for a content management system that you can build functionality on to, look no further than Joomla 1.5.

DataSync Offers Joomla 1.5 Hosting

SugarCRM has made a lot of in-roads in the world of customer relationship management. The product has received a lot of support because of its very customizable nature and flexibility compared to other solutions such as Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics. SugarCRM is now hoping  to expand that flexibility even further, this time to your BlackBerry. SugarCRM has recently received an additional $20 million in venture capital to develop this application and it’s certainly raising some eyebrows in the CRM world.

The $20 million in funding came from investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Walden International. SugarCRM will be using this money to fund research and development and support its expansion in the CRM market. Specifically SugarCRM is hoping to hoping to garner additional growth in both Asia and Europe. The CEO of SugarCRM, John Roberts, made the following statement at SugarCon about the funding, “the funding will allow SugarCRM to accelerate its goal of moving CRM from a proprietary lock-in model to an open, value-based model.”

For their new mobile software, SugarCRM is partnering with iEnterprises, which is a wireless CRM consulting firm, to deliver information stored inside of SugarCRM  to mobile users. There’s currently a produced called Mobile Edge Express that provides some of this functionality to users by iEnterprises. It can be downloaded freely online. SugarCRM and iEnterprises hope to develop this tool even further and provide a robust means for SugarCRM users to access their CRM data from any blackberry device.