DataSync Business News

In an effort to keep you updated on our progress on DataSync Suite, I decided to sit down with our engineers and ask a few probing questions. We’re excited about our progress with the package thus far, and have a strong commitment of keeping you up to date on what we’re up to. We have an extremely dynamic group of engineers who are making fast progress on our software package.

Q: What aspect of DataSync Suite are you working on right now?
A: Right now we’re working on the ability to archive emails to SugarCRM from Zimbra. This is just the first step in reproducing many of the features of the Outlook and Thunderbird plugins but for Zimbra.

Q: What technologies will you use use for data synchronization?
A: Data synchronization will be handled by what we’ve dubbed the “Integration Bus”. The “Integration Bus”, in short, will listen for changes to certain types of data in applications. When a change occurs in a particular application the Bus will distribute those changes to all other applications which rely on the same type of data.

Q: What are some of the upcoming features to expect?
A: The next major feature that we’ll be releasing is, of course, the email archiving. The communities surrounding Zimbra and SugarCRM have been looking for a way to keep their addressbook (contacts) and their calendars synchronized. After the email archiving our focus will be on just that, giving users a way to keep their calendars and contacts in sync between SugarCRM and Zimbra. Of course the DataSync Suite won’t be limited to just those two applications but will provide the means to allow other applications to be added to the mix easily.

Q: What applications will you be supporting in the future?
A: The next application we will be adding support for is Alfresco. Alfresco is an innovative open source content management system which provides digital management for documents, records, and website content. Following Alfresco will be Magento, an open source ecommerce solution.

Q: How do you handle feature requests?
A: Feature requests and bug reports can be submitted through our website feature request form.

Q: When are the next minor and major releases of the software?
A: The next release will be 0.5.0. This release will include the new email archiving functionality, an improved dashboard that takes up less screen real estate, and will introduce a new application server.

Q: When do you expect a 1.0 release?
A:  We’re looking to release version 1.0 around the end of the year.

If you have questions or comments, please post on our forums or contact us directly.

SugarCRM 5.1 is set for release very soon, and it brings a great new feature - native mobile access. The new version of SugarCRM will have support for iPhone and Blackberry right out of the box. This is great news for today’s mobile professional.

Off the wire from PC World: “[SugarCRM 5.1] will let users view the same number of standard SugarCRM modules, or sets of information, on their smart phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) as on their PCs. Supported devices include the Apple iPhone and Research in Motion BlackBerry, two of the platforms in highest demand among SugarCRM’s customers.”

At DataSync we’re very excited about this release. We have a number of clients who would really benefit from this technology. For that matter we’d love it as well. There’s nothing better than to be out of the office on business or otherwise and feel in touch with your customers.

We plan to offer SugarCRM 5.1 support about 2 weeks after it’s official release. This will give us time to test the new product and upgrade current clients.

SugarCRM and DataSync have implemented the open source software package for the largest free music festival in the nation – LifeLight. LifeLight brings over 300,000 people each year to a full 3 days of music and ministry.

We have spent the last few months building a dynamic web data management platform base on SugarCRM to manage all the data that 300,000 attendees generate. This has been a huge project for us, mostly due to the fact that we’re dealing with a highly dynamic, high growth organization that needs a lot of custom work.

DataSync has already built over 12 custom CRM modules to manage all the information LifeLight depends on. In addition, the entire infrastructure is linked to LifeLight’s website, allowing for interaction and e-commerce to integrate directly with SugarCRM.

For more information, see the LifeLight case study on DataSync’s website.

We’re finally ready to commit to a timeline for our first landmark feature for DataSync Suite: Zimbra email archiving to SugarCRM. You’ve been asking for it, we’re going to deliver. It’ll be open source and up for grabs in a couple months.

We’ve been focused on developing the single sign-on and account management portions of DataSync Suite. Now that we’ve made some progress there, we’re going to focus on a cool new feature over the next few weeks: developing a plugin that allows users to archive their email in Zimbra to SugarCRM.

We’ve already seen this done in desktop clients such as Thunderbird and Outlook, but no one has done it in the web interface of Zimbra. We’re doing this to remove the need for a desktop client to move information between SugarCRM and Zimbra.

In the future we’re also going to add contact, task, and calender syncing to the plugin. We’ll probably take a break and work on some other aspects of DataSync Suite (such as the integration bus) before we tackle that. However if there’s a group out in the community who would like to help us out, that would be much appreciated

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.

SugarCRM 5.0 was recently released to the public, and we’ve had a good chance make use of the new version during our day to day business operations. So far, we’ve been incredibly impressed with the new version and the flexibility that it has to offer. Here are five new features in SugarCRM 5.0 that might make you want to upgrade:

Custom Module Builder – SugarCRM 5.0 has a tool which allows users to build their own custom modules to track whatever’s most important to you. It eliminates the need to hire an external development firm to get the reports you want in many cases. The new module builder works with reporting, work flow, and Sugar Studio.

AJAX Email Client – Email is an area of SugarCRM that Sugar significantly improved in version 5.0. The new version of SugarCRM implements its own AJAX Email client that’s very useable. It’s got a rich ajax interface, search, keyboard shortcuts, contacts, and support for multiple contacts. It’s certainly no Zimbra or Outlook, but if that’s all you got, it’s useable.

Improved Sugar Dashboards – Dashboards on Sugar just became much more useable and visually appealing. There’s now support for funnel charts, pie charts, line graphs, bar graphs, and even performance gauge charts. You can create your own custom dashboards or use the ones built in.

Improved Access Control – SugarCRM 5.0 offers a substantially improved user access control system. This will allow you to give your employees access to only the information that they need. This is a significant security improvement and reduces a lot of risk by making sure your employees don’t have too much access to information.

SugarCRM has turned what was already a great customer relationship management tool into something even better. SugarCRM 5.0 has a lot of great new features that improves the usability of the tool, and it’s definitely worth considering.

DataSync offers SugarCRM 5.0 Hosting.

When we think of the idea of a Meetup Group, most of us think small groups of Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich supporters that organize sparsely attended events for their candidates, but there are a few other interesting groups that have come up as well. It turns out there’s a meetup group in Chicago for the open source application, SugarCRM.

Stefania Viscusi from TCM Net has the story

Open source CRM provider, SugarCRM (News - Alert), offers the “Chicagoland SugarCRM meetup,” for beginners and experts to highlight the latest tips and tricks for making the most out of SugarCRM.

The monthly meeting also offers an answer session with SugarCRM experts, and information about software patches and new releases.

DataSync offers SugarCRM Hosting

CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SugarCRM, the world’s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced prominent keynotes and sponsors for SugarCon 2008, its global customer and developer conference, February 6-8, 2008, at the Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose, California. Research In Motion, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, MySQL, Talend and Levementum are among the industry leaders sponsoring the conference, which is designed for users, developers and managers of CRM projects. Space is limited, so please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/register.html for more information and to secure a reservation.

The kickoff keynote, “The End of the Beginning: Open Source Moves into the Mainstream,” by SugarCRM Co-Founder and CEO John Roberts, will look at how open source is transforming the software industry and what it means for the future of CRM.

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, will speak about Sun’s role as the largest commercial open source contributor and how its recent acquisition of MySQL further positions the company as a platform for the Web economy.

Other keynotes include:

In addition to the keynotes, SugarCon 2008 offers over 40 sessions tailored to SugarCRM customers, partners, administrators and developers. Breakout topics include “CRM On-Demand or On-Site: A Decision Framework,” “Best Practices for Deploying SugarCRM,” “GPL v3: What It Means for You” and “Mashing Up Sugar.” To view a complete agenda, please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/agenda.html.

SugarCon 2008 includes the following extracurricular activities:

• California cuisine, drinks and music at the famed Testarossa Winery in the Los Gatos hills
• Welcome reception and dinner at the Dolce Hayes Mansion
• Rooftop party on Santana Row in San Jose

Research In Motion and Microsoft are Platinum Sponsors for SugarCon. Selling Power Magazine is the premier media sponsor. Gold Sponsors include Oracle, Sun, MySQL, Talend and Levementum. Silver Sponsors include InsideView, JasperSoft, JigSaw, Q-Industries, SierraCRM and Zend Technologies. CRM Magazine, PHP Magazine and myCRMcareer.com are media sponsors of the event.

Attendance cost is USD 495 per person. Please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/register.html to register.

About SugarCRM

SugarCRM is the world’s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes. Sugar easily adapts to any business environment by offering a more flexible, cost-effective alternative than proprietary applications. SugarCRM’s open source architecture allows companies to more easily customize and integrate customer-facing business processes in order to build and maintain more profitable relationships. SugarCRM offers several deployment options, including on-demand, on-premise and appliance-based solutions to suit customers’ security, integration and configuration needs.

DataSync offers high-quality SugarCRM Hosting. Click here for more information.

We are proud to announce that we now have full production SugarCRM 5.0 hosting, implementation, and support services, as well as upgrades from SugarCRM 4.5 to 5.0. SugarCRM 5.0 is the latest version of our partner’s ground-breaking software, and cements both DataSync and SugarCRM as a premier CRM solution for organizations around the globe.

Sugar’s landmark 5.0 release includes the “module builder”, a mechanism for building out custom modules that are fully integrated with the entire Sugar suite. DataSync already has experience building out custom modules and functionality using this tool. DataSync also offers module builder training for firms who are looking to implement SugarCRM internally.

We are really excited to find new ways to leverage the power of SugarCRM in a variety of industry verticals. We believe our prior experience combined with the best new tools will help us provide the best solutions on the market to our clients.

For a few years now, the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and SugarCRM haven’t talked. We all wish they would. It’s a frustrating problem, because both applications have very strong points, but very different uses. Zimbra excels at group collaboration and messaging, while Sugar is a full fledged CRM application. The problem is syncing email, calendars, and contacts has been non-existent.

That’s about to change. DataSync is sponsoring the “Zimgar” project, which aims to build an open source tool that plugs both applications into each other. No more manual or Outlook-based tri-directional syncing. Right now we’re still in the planning stages of this project, but hope to start development very soon.

If you have ideas or thoughts email me. I’d be more than happy to go over our strategy and get your input.

Onward!

-Mike