CRM: The Latest Linux Frontier
For evidence of this trend, consider CRM integrator Interchange Solutions. The Ontario-based company is currently testing its Maximizer Enterprise applications on Linux with an eye toward migrating much of its operations to Linux early this year. At press time, 10 of its 300 customers were running their CRM solutions on the open-source platform.
Brian Arnold, Interchange's vice president of research and development, says the technological developments made in the open-source community have combined with support from venerable vendors to legitimize the platform.
"It's mature enough at this point for these types of deployments, especially given the efforts of IBM, Novell and some other key vendors," he says.
Arnold says most of Interchange's early CRM-Linux adopters are SMB clients.
"That's where Linux is strongest... because the total cost of ownership is so low at first, but it allows them to ramp up later as they grow," he says.
What no one disputes is Linux's robustness, but now that its strength is combined with better security and a significantly lower price than other platforms, the way it is being implemented is spreading, well, like a virus.
"It has become an easy decision to go with Linux for something like CRM because it will make the applications even more powerful; we're not yet to the point where we're telling people to run it on Linux, but it does give you better performance with the same hardware," Arnold says. "A lot of customers are reluctant to get locked into a Microsoft CRM solution; they're looking for something a little more flexible."
As always, the Microsoft factor remains a constant consideration when making technology-buying decisions.
"I wouldn't bet against them because [theirs is] the only solution that controls the inbox," says Tom Wong, vice president of CRM solutions for Theikos, a solution provider in Waltham, Mass., that partners with Salesforce.com to help deliver its CRM services to a variety of clients, some of them using the Linux platform (though not necessarily for CRM yet). "But at this point, we rarely compete with Microsoft because it's still very much geared toward the SOHO and SMB space."
And that is precisely the space where Linux-based CRM is making its early gains. But given the volume of emerging SMB companies and their increasing openness to open systems, VARs should find that there are plenty of opportunities to go around.