Partnership Provides Customers with Open and Easy Access to Free Company Data
CUPERTINO and SAN MATEO, CA (June 04, 2008) –
SugarCRM, the leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, announced its support for the Open Data Initiative unveiled today by Jigsaw, a leading provider of business information and data services that uniquely leverages user-generated content contributed by its global membership. Advancing an open source approach to company data, Jigsaw’s Open Data Initiative makes it easy to search, select and import company data for Free into leading CRM and Contact Management solutions.
With this announcement, SugarCRM will leverage the Free company data provided through Jigsaw’s Open Data Initiative to make it simple for their customers to search, select and import Jigsaw’s accurate and up-to-date company data. SugarCRM and Jigsaw also worked together to develop a native CSV file format that maps to all SugarCRM product editions, thereby allowing SugarCRM customers to easily populate their CRM solution with Jigsaw’s Free company data. As a founding member of Jigsaw’s new initiative, SugarCRM is also able to pre-load its CRM solutions for new customers with Free company data provided by Jigsaw.
“Jigsaw’s Open Data Initiative is a perfect match for SugarCRM’s commercial open source technology,” said Paul Oh, vice president of Technology Alliances at SugarCRM. “Both efforts are committed to breaking down the artificial restrictions of closed software formats and proprietary vendors. We look forward to working together to bring more open solutions to our joint customer base.”
Jigsaw’s Open Data Initiative is the company’s latest move to democratize data and make it easily accessible to businesses of all sizes. At its founding in 2004, Jigsaw was first to introduce a directory of business contacts that harnessed the “wisdom of the crowds” through user generated content. Building off of this success and experience, Jigsaw has introduced company data that has been developed in the same manner and is now Free and easy to download in bulk by Jigsaw’s members and partners.
“To effect industry change, it is important to align with the best in the field,” said Jim Fowler, CEO and co-founder, Jigsaw. “Together with leading CRM and Contact Management solution providers, including SugarCRM we are changing the course of the data industry. Visit any website, directory or mapping application and you can find the basic company information for individual companies in the public domain. However, if that information is needed in aggregate, it can be very expensive or time consuming to gather and integrate that data into business processes. Jigsaw believes that company data should not only be freely available but easily accessible and transferable to professional contact systems and enterprise-level CRM solutions.”
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 87 SUGARCRM toll-free in the US, email contact@sugarcrm.com, or visit http://www.sugarcrm.com.
About Jigsaw
Jigsaw (www.jigsaw.com) is a leading provider of business information and data services that uniquely leverages user-generated content contributed by its global membership. Today, the Jigsaw community and more than 500 enterprises use the Jigsaw directory to access information for 8 million business contacts and 1 million companies. Jigsaw delivers low-cost and easy access to high-value business information that can be used to identify key decision makers and people for purposes such as sales, marketing, recruiting and customer service. Founded in 2004, Jigsaw is located in San Mateo, Calif. and is funded by Austin Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, and Norwest Venture Partners.
Media Contacts:
SugarCRM Press Contact:
Jen Spark
Schwartz Communications for SugarCRM
SugarCRM@schwartz-pr.com
415-512-0770
Jigsaw Company Contact:
Susan Chenoweth
Jigsaw
650-235-8331
susan@jigsaw.com
Press Contact:
Paula Cavagnaro
Antenna Group
415-977-1915
paula@antennagroup.com
Source: SugarCRM