Stride so Steep; Sugar so Sweet !!!

“The Cloud is Open” that’s what SugarCRM say. Indeed the cloud is open for SugarCRM now as according to The Wall Street Journal, IBM is planning to replace its Siebel based customer relationship management (CRM) products with software owned by open-source software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor SugarCRM (an 8-year-old company backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and two other venture funds), HP recently revealed that it too would be replacing Siebel with products provided by SaaS.

These days, more and more companies are adopting SaaS applications which is sometimes called Web-based software, on-demand software, or hosted software. Whatever the name, SaaS applications run on a SaaS provider’s servers. The provider manages access to the application, including security, availability and performance.

IBM was the world's largest deployment of Siebel applications, and this replacement is an indication of the pressure on Oracle's application business. The contract demonstrates how quickly a relative startup (SugarCRM) can establish credibility in the fast-moving market to provide Web-based software, frequently referred to as the cloud. Within such a short span of time, Sugar already has more than 10,000 customers globally and The contract, which IBM was shopping as far back as two years ago, also shows how rivalries between technology giants can impact business relationships.

For SugarCRM, the IBM deal gives the company more legitimacy and shows its ability to secure key contracts against larger foes. SugarCRM is building a business aimed at delivering management services around a core of open-source software that clients can deploy in a private or public cloud.

SugarCRM continues to distribute its software through 350 partners worldwide and generates revenue by offering services wrapped around the open-source code.