CRM Software Advice?

Zascar

A company I am doing some work for are trying to implement a new CRM system. The are currently using Microsoft CRM but the users say it is slow and they do not like using it, which is causing problems. They are considering a product called Goldmine, but I want to try to find out what else is out there. They don't think Salesforce.com is appropriate as aparantly once the data is in there that's it, you can't extract it to move elsewhere if needed. They would perfer a SQL database type operation.

I don't know much about this type of thing but I heard there are some good (free) open source alternatives - Sugar CRM being one of them. Can anyone tell me if this is really free and if it is up to par with Siebel or Terrasoft etc?

I would appreciate any advice you can offer.
Many Thanks.

quazzy

Theres a load of free CRM packages on sourceforge.net

http://sourceforge.net/projects/citecrm

http://sourceforge.net/search/?words=crm&type_of_search=soft

Haven't used any of them so you may had to look around for review etc.

G'luck

Q

Zascar

I think they would perfer to stick with a bigger name for reasons of support etc. They are a small company but its worth a small investment to get it right first time.

If anyone has worked with Goldmine, Sugar CRM, ACT or any others I'd love to hear your opinions.
cheers

Rollo Tamasi

I haven't worked with Sugar myself but i have heard many a good thing about it.

steve-hosting36

We've used Goldmine - it's good but bloated. Also played with salesforce.com and sugar - we're likely heading the salesforce.com route.

mneylon

Had a look at Goldmine and some of our clients swear buy it.

Have been using Sugar CRM on and off for the last couple of years and find it nice and easy to use.

What's Salesforce.com like?

steve-hosting36

salesforce.com is excellent, and the Appexchange suite is full of exciting stuff.

You using the free or paid version of Sugar?