Open-Source CRM Player Takes Channel-Centric Approach

What do you get when you cross an open-source pedigree with channel experience bred at Microsoft? You get Centric CRM, a seven-year-old software developer with Fortune 500 clients that hopes to make a big impact in CRM for small businesses.

Michael Harvey, chief marketing officer and vice president of corporate development for the Norfolk, Va.-based company, said Centric CRM already has around 30 business partners and hopes to authorize a total of between 50 and 100 by the end of the year. "What we're seeing is spontaneous organic interest in open-source solutions."

Centric CRM's core technology is built onto Java J2EE and supports integrations with VoIP solutions. Some of its basic features include sales pipeline management, lead management, help desk and project management.

Harvey, who said he was one of the architects behind Microsoft's first VAR programs for LAN Manager and SQL Server, applied that philosophy to the development of Centric CRM's partner program. Solution providers working with Centric CRM can expect two days of sales and technical training for up to two staff members and can earn margins starting at 25 percent, depending on volume, or referral fees of 5 percent.

Because the software is open source, partners can benefit from each other's best practices and implementation techniques. Benefits also include a five-seat, internal-use Centric CRM enterprise software license and membership on the partner advisory board. There is a one-time $1,999 program fee.

Another thing that differentiates Centric CRM from competitive offerings, Harvey said, is flexibility. VARs can choose to offer the application to their customers as an on-premise license, as a private-labeled, hosted service, or as a branded service from Centric CRM.

Tim LeMunyon, vice president of business development for eVergance, an Overland, Kan., consulting and systems integration company specializing in CRM, said Centric CRM has added functionality to its application that most CRM vendors have yet to find out. "They're integrating communities into the product, the ability to interact with customers from the outside. ... With open source, because you have a number of people doing development efforts, now these things get integrated into the system much quicker," he said.

Daniel Kenyon, vice president of business development and general manager for Reliant Tech, an SMB solution provider in Aberdeen, N.J., said his company discovered Centric CRM when it was evaluating CRM software for its own internal use. Reliant opted to represent an open-source product because it can run across a range of platforms and device formats, and because the company can benefit from innovations developed by the open-source community. Moreover, Kenyon appreciated the company's channel-centric sales approach.

"One of the things we like about them is they do not compete with us," he said. "Support has been top-notch."

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