SugarCRM Unveils Version 7 At Confab

SugarCRM today demoed its upcoming Sugar 7 product to users, developers and partners which feature – among other things -- on-screen dashboards, social streams, mobility, and increased speed.

The latest version of the company’s flagship customer relationship management product will be generally available by this summer, but its primary capabilities were unveiled to nearly 1,000 attendees at its SugarCon user, developer and partner conference in New York.

Specifically, Sugar 7 will feature an embedded intelligence panel, or “dashlet” on the right screen pane, which provides an up to date view of customer or client information; integrated social streams that lets users monitor activity and collaborate in the context of the client screen; and increased speed due to the use of the HTML 5 platform, which also allows users to rapidly filter, tag, follow, and share key customer and deal activity from a single view.

“The Sugar 7 solution departs from CRM software’s traditional focus on internal management of the sales team. Sugar 7 focuses first on the needs of the user who interacts 1-to-1 with the customer,” said SugarCRM chief executive Larry Augustin. “By leveraging a smart, fast, social customer engagement platform, every customer-facing professional across the enterprise knows their customer better, does their job better, and delivers a consistent, superior experience.”

Chief product officer Lila Tretikov also admitted that Sugar 7 is a departure from previous versions, claiming the company had to “change the way we thought about CRM” with this latest offering.

“There’s been a historical divide with front and back office and we are making sure that is not the case. Sugar being used more as a central record database,” said Tretikov. “Everyone is working differently these days; they need speed and this [version] is faster than ever, built on the HTML 5 platform. Also, the social stream has become the new inbox, so you will find that in Sugar 7.”   

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Technology
MORE FROM ACCOUNTING TODAY