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In-Depth Review
openCRX
openCRX.org
Telephone:
Email:
community@opencrx.org
Web:
http://www.opencrx.org/
After careful analysis of the market for Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) software we came to the conclusion that the world needs a professional
enterprise-class Open Source CRM solution for several reasons:
- Spending millions on a commercial CRM solution to get an
"intelligent data warehouse" with a few business rules simply does not
seem justified - with a professional Open Source CRM solution you can
spend your money on company-specific features and integrating CRM with
the rest of your business (systems and processes) instead of financing
the marketing machinery of the typical CRM vendor. It is just a fact
that the true value of any CRM solution can only be unlocked with proper
customization and integration, regardless of what you read in glossy
brochures.
- The cost-advantages of rented/hosted CRM applications over
commercial solutions may materialize - or not (and yes, the marketing
machines of many CRM providers are really outstanding...); far more
important, however, is the fact that neither rented/hosted CRM solutions
nor commercial CRM solutions can beat the total cost of ownership (TCO)
of a well-designed Open Source CRM solution like openCRX.
- While it is very smart to let somebody else do the work for you
(e.g. running your CRM application) it is definitely not so smart to
trust your most valuable data (information about your customers) to just
anybody. In particular, handing over all your valuable customer data to
a company under foreign jurisdiction is a substantial business risk. So,
when you looked at those hosted/rented CRM applications, did you ever
ask yourself where exactly they would store your data and how much
better you would feel about staying in control?
- We are strong believers in platform-independence. And honestly, is
it not great to know that you can decide for openCRX without committing
to a particular platform? openCRX is deployable on any J2EE-compliant
application server and you can use a wide range of major database
management systems (Open Source and commercial).
Hence, back in 2003 we started modeling the core of a reference
CRM-application. The tool of choice for developing an open source CRM
solution was openMDX, the leading open source MDA platform (MDA = Model
Driven Architecture). In February 2004 we already released an initial
version of the core models. The first public version of openCRX was released
on 1-August-2004 and we admit that we have been totally overwhelmed by the
interest in openCRX ever since.
Driving force behind openCRX
Werner Froidevaux and Chris Mueller have been the main drivers behind the
development of openCRX; in total there are 4 people working on the project
(each spending about 20% of their time on this project). All the resources
have been donated by CRIXP Corp. and OMEX AG.
Product: openCRX
Current Version: 1.10.1
Category: On-Premise Small Enterprise CRM
Solution
Sub-Category:
Client Platform: Web Browser
Server Platform: 2EE-compliant AppServer (e.g.
JBoss, Sun Java System Application Server, BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere)
Database Platform: MySQL, PostgreSQL,
Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or IBM DB2
openCRX is an open CRM solution that meets the needs of organizations
requiring multifunctional, enterprise-wide coordination of sales generation,
sales fulfillment, marketing and service activities to customers, partners,
suppliers or intermediaries:
- Account Management - openCRX's account management
provides a true 360° view of customers across contracts, activities,
products, and status. Account management enables your employees to build
tighter, more profitable relationships by understanding the status of
each account.
- Product and Price Management - In addition to
managing products, prices and price lists in multiple currencies, you
can build complex products based on simple products. openCRX supports
the whole range of advanced product structuring, e.g. product bundling
and design of product offerings based on multiple product bundles.
Extremely flexible pricing rules, which you can add/modify at run-time,
allow you to implement any desired pricing algorithm.
- Sales Pipeline - openCRX allows your team to focus
on profitable deals and close them faster by sharing consistent sales
information, tracking deal progress, and recording all deal-related
interactions. In combination with openCRX's activity management you can
customize your own sales processes. The sales pipeline gives marketing
professionals the tools to manage prospects and existing customers. You
can integrate the openCRX sales pipeline at any stage with your existing
ERP application to provide your sales force with relevant real-time data
like warehouse information, shipping status, etc.
- Advanced Activity Management and Issue Tracking -
Coordinate workflow in large projects, track and monitor all
project-related incidents and activities, group and structure your
activities with activity trackers, stay in control with advanced
time-tracking and real-time reports - or simply use openCRX as a very
sophisticated bug tracker
Tools and Administration
openCRX administrators can customize the openCRX application to fit
unique business demands, from changing a field or the layout to designing
advanced activity processes to enhance the information flow within your
organization. Advanced access control allows you to share information or
restrict access based on user profile, role or team. Finally, extend openCRX
with additional business modules with the openCRX wizards, reports and
workflow capabilities.
What are the benefits of openCRX?
- True Open Source - openCRX is open source CRM
software packed with enterprise-class features like role-based security,
system-wide/pervasive audit-trail, true platform independence, virtually
unlimited scalability, and much more - in addition to the openCRX source
code you also get all the UML models and the full Javadoc (everything
published with a truly open and OSI-certified BSD style license)
- Professional CRM suite — limitless relationship
management, powerful and comprehensive best-of-breed features for sales,
service, marketing, contact center, and issue management; multi-entity
enabled with multi-language and multi-currency support for players in a
global market
- Deployment-free client — simply connect with your
browser, no need to deploy proprietary clients throughout your
organization, openCRX works with any recent version of IE, Opera,
Mozilla, Firefox, etc.
- Easy to integrate and highly interoperable - easy
integration with your existing applications (ERP, IVR, CTI, ...) is the
best protection for your previous investments and openCRX supports all
common technologies like RMI, CORBA, JMS, and JCA; openCRX also includes
smart front-ends for typical add-ons like document management, inventory
tracking, facility management, etc.
- Highly scalable - from a single-user environment on
a laptop to enterprise-class globally distributed systems with tens of
thousands of concurrent users - openCRX is designed to fit your needs
- Extremely low operations and maintenance costs -
open standards, low complexity, highest quality, designed for true 24x7
availability - if you think that hosted/on-demand CRM is a
cost-effective solution, think again!
- Platform-independent and vendor-neutral - openCRX
runs on any platform with a J2EE-compliant AppServer (e.g. JBoss, Sun
Java System Application Server, BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere) and one
of the major database management systems (e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS
SQL, Oracle, or IBM DB2).
- Easy to customize - XML-based customization,
straight-forward, fast, and flexible (including multi-language features)
- Easy to extend - write your own workflows or
develop your own extensions - it's an easy task thanks to openCRX's
component-based architecture and open standards like J2EE, MDA, etc.
For pricing details, see:
http://www.opencrx.org/support.htm
We have yet to review this product.
Have a question about this program?
Then please just email me your question! If the answer is short
& sweet, I will pop you back an answer. If the question requires further
research, I will look into it and post the reply on my blog,
AskRichBohn.com, to share with
others. As always, you can email me at
rich@sellmorenow.com !
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