SugarCRM Introduces Sugar 4.5, Delivering Personalized CRM and Enhanced Support for Microsoft Windows

SugarCRM Inc., the world's leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced the beta release of Sugar 4.5, the fastest- growing CRM solution in the market today. Sugar 4.5 introduces powerful new functionality such as personalized views, internationalization and support for Microsoft Windows Server products to meet the increasing global demand for its solutions.

"Sugar 4.5 provides a deep CRM feature set without the complexity or restrictions common among other software providers," said William Crowell, Chief Information Officer, State of Oregon Department of Human Services. "The price-to-value of the solution combined with the control customer's gain from the multiple deployment options places SugarCRM in a class of its own."

"Each company has unique needs and each user works in different ways," says John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM. "Sugar 4.5 provides the personalization and collaboration capabilities to allow individuals to become more productive and for teams to become more effective."

Growing Momentum for Commercial Open Source

Sugar 4.5 marks the eighth major release for the company in two years. Since that time, Sugar Open Source has been downloaded over 800,000 times and localized into more than 40 languages. More than 5,000 developers have contributed over 220 extensions -- ranging from email response and presence awareness applications to Voice Over IP (VoIP) and computer telephony integrations -- to a community of over 15,000 members. Today, SugarCRM serves over 800 commercial customers.

Sugar Suite 4.5 enhances and extends functionality across sales, marketing, service, collaboration, reporting and administration, by offering:

Personal Homepages and User-Defined Page Views

Sugar 4.5 uses AJAX technology throughout the application so end users

can drag, drop, edit, add and remove objects from pages within the

application to reveal only the information important to their job.

AJAX is employed extensively within the revamped Sugar Studio, where

business and technical users can control the look, feel and

accessibility of the application in a few simple steps.

Sugar 4.5 for Microsoft Windows

Following a five-month technical collaboration with Microsoft

Corporation, Sugar 4.5 offers improved support for Microsoft's

Internet Information Services (IIS) Active Directory(R) and Microsoft

SQL Server(R) to more effectively serve joint SugarCRM and Microsoft

customers. SugarCRM will also release a new Sugar distribution under

the Microsoft Community License beginning with Sugar 4.5. This license

is part of the Microsoft Shared Source Initiative, a program through

which Microsoft shares source code with customers, partners and

governments worldwide.

International Support for a Global Community

Sugar 4.5 marks the eighth major release for SugarCRM in two years.

During that time, the application has been translated and localized

into over 40 languages. Sugar 4.5 introduces deep internationalization

functionality, including support for multi-byte character sets and

UTF-8 to ensure international users can store, search and retrieve

information in virtually any language.

Key additional functionality in Sugar 4.5 includes:

-- Enhanced Sales Forecasting - Improved forecasting with quota

assignment, scenario planning and forecasting worksheets allow reps to

provide more realistic commit amounts and provides managers the

ability to roll-up accurate forecasts across teams and territories.

-- Sugar Studio Enhancements - Improved Sugar Studio for code-free

customizations, backup and restore functionality, including error

handling and recovery mechanisms to simplify SugarCRM administration.

-- Integrated Forums - Threaded discussions integrated into Sugar modules

improves information sharing on any topic (e.g. Selling Tips and

Tricks, Support Issues, etc.) across Accounts, Bugs, Cases,

Opportunities, and Projects.

-- Self-Service Portal - Reveal SugarCRM data in customer-facing web

sites to allow employees, customers and partners access key

information.

-- Data Quality Controls - Sugar 4.5 checks for duplicate records upon

import with extensive duplicate checking logic. A log of duplicate

records is created to ensure data integrity. Users can merge existing

duplicate records from different views within the SugarCRM

application.

-- User Interface Improvements - Global search, saved searches, quick and

inline adds and edits create a more streamlined user experience across

the application.

-- Offline Client Enhancements - Improved installation, upgrade process

and optimized sync experience allows users to work offline more

effectively.

-- New Themes - Continue to intrigue the SugarCRM user base with some

enjoyable themes that can be changed in an instant.

Sugar 4.5 Community Preview and General Availability

Sugar Suite 4.5 is currently available to review on the Community Preview, a demo instance of the application with the new functionality for the general public to test and experience. The Community Preview is accessible to all at: http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/demo/45-community-preview.html .

The Beta release of Sugar Open Source 4.5 is currently available at http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/download/sugar-suite.html .

The general availability release of Sugar Open Source, Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise, will be available in August at http://www.sugarcrm.com .

About SugarCRM

SugarCRM is the world's leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes. SugarCRM 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.

For more information, call (408) 454-6900 or 1 877 SUGARCRM tollfree in the US, email contact@sugarcrm.com , or visit http://www.sugarcrm.com .

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