According to the press release, the general availability of Sugar 6 sets a new bar for ease of use, flexibility and openness. Sugar 6 was developed with the idea that CRM does not have to be complex to deploy or use, nor too expensive for growing companies.

“Sugar 6 closes the gap between robust CRM and applications that employees actually want to use,” says Larry Augustin, chief executive officer of SugarCRM. “With Sugar 6, organizations of all sizes can improve their business processes and empower their customers – with no limits or compromises.”

With the addition of Sugar 6 in the Suite, users have access to the main features of the Sugar 6 release including:

Intuitive User Experience

The new release features a clean, bold look of new buttons and icons that allow users to perform tasks more easily while increasing the amount of data viewable on each screen. Simplified default views, inline filtering and one-click actions adapt to the multitasking environment common to busy sales people.

For example, users can use the Shortcut Bar to quickly log an incoming call or assign a task without ever leaving the existing screen. The Sugar 6 menus take fewer clicks to access and users can quickly find previously viewed pages from anywhere in the application. With the updated Sugar Global Search, Sugar 6 takes into account where users are in the application and quickly presents the most meaningful search results.

Flexible Design

Building upon SugarCRM’s reputation as the most flexible CRM on the market, Sugar 6 empowers users with the ability to view and consume data and applications from nearly any source, due to the ultra-flexible Sugar 6 platform. Users can quickly and easily leverage information from social networks and data services-such as Twitter and LinkedIn-right inside the user interface.

Open Architecture

As a leader in providing open source CRM software, SugarCRM sets the bar in the business applications industry for offering users freedom and choice in deploying and managing their CRM. Sugar 6 is designed to run on any cloud service platform or on-premise operating system.

More Information

For more information about Sugar 6 visit: http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/products/new-in-sugar.html. For more information on signing up for DataSync Suite with Sugar 6 integration, call 1-866-901-7478 or email sales@datasyncorp.com.

Cost

Zimbra hosting is more cost efficient than Exchange hosting:

• Zimbra hosting: $3.95 to $9.95/mo per user
• Exchange hosting: $9.95 to $24.95/mo per user

Flexibility

Use Zimbra on any platform (Windows, Apple, Linux), with any mobile device (BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, flip phones).

Better administration

The Zimbra online administrator is light, simple to use, and flexible across multiple domains

Solid security

Full integrated antispam and antivirus capabilities protect your users

More than just the basics

Zimbra goes beyond just email, calendar, contact and task sharing. It adds a document center, instant messaging, and a collaborative wiki to the collaboration suite experience.

Great features!

Zimbra has all the major features of Exchange, and more!

In the last few years, Zimbra has grown by leaps and bounds in competing with Outlook and Exchange in the corporate email world. Most technical analysts agree that Zimbra has a much better and more server management tools, is much more efficient than exchange, and is more reliable than exchange, however thus far Zimbra has been primarily been an email-server solution, and much less of an email client. It’s has a very usable AJAX web client, but until recently, there was no desktop software that Zimbra created to compete directly with Outlook. Zimbra recently launched a beta of their new desktop client, dubbed Zimbra Desktop, and we’re impressed.

The primary benefit in using Zimbra desktop as opposed to the web client is that you can use it when you’re offline. You might be on the road, have your laptop with you, and want to send an email or save an appointment for later, but you can’t since there’s no internet connection. You can now do that with Zimbra Desktop. You can make any changes you want with Zimbra’s Desktop Client, and then whenever you have an internet connection again, it’ll sync your changes up to the server.

Zimbra Desktop features full email support as you get in Outlook. It also features a fast and indexed search tool. You can also access your calendar and contacts offline. An interesting feature is that you can manage Gmail, Yahoo Mail, IMAP, and POP email accounts in addition to your Zimbra email accounts. This means that you can view all of your Gmail offline, make changes as you’d like, and then when you connect to the internet, any changes you make to the account will by synced.

The client is written in Java and is available on Windows, Mac, or Linux. So far, it’s just a beta, but it’s got a lot of potential. As the development process continues and Zimbra Desktop matures, Outlook is sure to have a fierce competitor.

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