newbie on this board
sorry for typing my message in English. Reason: I can not install Chinese language software on the company laptop without approval!

I have been working on the CRM system for ISP in the States since late 1998….. now, I am an Oracle CRM expert …. still working in the telecom industry.

I come across this board by accident… It seems someone has been working on open source CRM system. I am really surprised! not too many people doing open source commercial application those days, especially for enterprise solution! …. only thing I can think of is that some Israel companies were trying to provide free CRM application to some minor telecom firms in the States, however, it is just for the sake of getting a foot step in the NorthAmerican Market…. it is not aimed to provide free software forever…. this lead to my curiosity: who is sponsoring your development effort? how big is your system C3CRM2.0.0? I am not trying to be intrusive or nosy! I would be astonished if I find out that you guys are trying to come up with an enterprise solution.

Thank you very much!
Kansas

Re:newbie on this board
Thanks for your post.
you can learn c3crm via our demo:https://demo.c3crm.com

We are trying to provide open source and free crm for SME in china. We also set up a c3crm product consulants group for c3crm system. Welcome you to join this group. you can join via http://product.c3crm.com. You can contact me by gmail(dfar2008@gmail.com) for detail info about c3crm.

Tim Ding

可否介绍下你们是怎么进行测试发现瓶颈的？
是通过 Zend Studio 的调试环境吗？

impression&suggestion
Yes! I did take a look at your GUI at https://demo.c3crm.com. However, I have not spent too much time to review the details. The following items are based on a quick glance at the tabs that indicate the basic features of your software.
Impression:
[1] The GUI looks very professional. It will catch the eyes of the potential users.
[2] The software is more like J. D. Edwards application. So, it may be a good fit for a sales department or manufacture, but not a CRM system for customer service, such as call-center.
[3] The application is trying to cover every aspect of the business, which may be too much to handle.
Suggestion:
[1] To include statistics in CRM application is definitely not a great idea, Data Mining is resource intense process. In most companies I worked for this process often locate on separate server that get the production data over night. There are many different software for dataMining/reporting available on the market.
[2] To include the Email system into the CRM application is a redundant effort. MS Outlook already has all the functionalities ready. Why spend resource to duplicate the same features? Maybe there is a confusion about ERMS[EmailResponseManagementSystem]. In peopleSoft CRM, the ERMS automatically handles the structure Email request. And customer Representatives use group email alias to handle the worklist, which often belongs to un-structured email request. However, it does not handle individual reps email or meeting schedule.
[3] Somehow the log in process takes too much time[roughly 30 seconds]. I hope this was not due to the network connectivity issue. Also, to use the Apache as web server is OK, however, if you do not have tomcat/weblogic/websphere to handle the transaction, there is no way for you to support the concurrent users on enterprise scale. To use Mysql as the database server? Hmm….. It does not look promising! I do not know your architectural design, so, I can not make too much comment. But one thing I can tell you: A good CRM application has to be 3 tier architecture, and web server, application server, and database server should be on separate boxes.

Good luck for your project! Please forgive me if I made blunt statement here.

Before we discuss the
Before we discuss the software architecture, let me briefly recall the latest CRM history. So, we can see where we are, what may happen next. A software architect must have a clear vision!

Back 12-13 years ago, we saw hundreds [if not thousands] CRM software vendors/builders mushroomed under the rainbow of high-tech booming rainbow. However, by the end of 2000, 90% of them died under the scorching sunlight of harsh reality, and only a handful names still can be seen or heard: SAP, peopelsoft, Siebel, J.D.Edwards, and Oracle. But game is not over yet! Since vendors run out of tier one customers [mega size companies], they started to look the market of medium size business, and trying to scale down their existing application for this need. This move just enticed the appetite of Microsoft. Then, a new era of war started. Microsoft announced that she will be the one who will provide medium [and small] size business firms with CRM system. Nobody could afford to misunderstand her statement. The sheer weight of this three hundred pounds gorilla can simply crash any small dog on the field. Every software company has to remember the miserable story of WordPerfect, Lotus123, Netscape, etc…… In order to defend themselves, the Merger&Acquisition party prelude the real competition. As you may know, Peoplesoft bought out J.D.Edwards which is very popular with manufacture firms. But Larry of Oracle has simply abandoned his obscure CRM application, and swallowed peoplesoft and Siebel as a whole. As of today [March of 2006], the line has being clearly drawn on the battle field: large firms have being divided between SAP[strong in Europe, aggressive in NorthAmerica] and Oracle [keeping its existing lucrative customers, while struggling with merger related issues, both in personnel and software]; The market of medium size firm is un-chartered territory. Nobody can present an rock solid evidence to convincing customers that her system is the best. Amid of the turmoil, we saw google, the dragon slayer in Bill’s eye, are sneaking in. It seems google is trying to grab all the small business firms by providing web-based application hosting service for CRM system [un-confirmed rumors !!] . This is a major blast to Microsoft. I just saw a news that google is working on beta testing of a calendar program, tentatively called CL2. My instinct is telling me that the combination of Gmail+CL2 will kill MS Outlook. 3 years down the road, Microsoft will not dare to ask license fee for Outlook.

Now, let’s look at your targeting market here. Your system is:
[1] it is a generic application, not specific to any particular industry or any commercial field.
[2] it consist of front-end browser based GUI, and back-end database storage
[3] it is for small/medium business firm [end user below 50 Users can hardly be called medium size business]

Question: do you have a sizable target market to enter?
Answer: Yes! You do, and it is a huge market too. Thousands of small business owners do need CRM system to facilitate their business operation. Unfortunately this is also the market that the big dogs have their eyes on.
Question: can you afford to have an head-on collision with Microsoft? http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/product/overview.mspx
Answer: No! you can not, if Microsoft simply bundle its CRM application into MS Office like Word, or give it away for free like IE browser. It will be extremely hard for you to get any customer. Who wants to do separate software installation/maintenance when he/she already has similar software that comes with standard office suite or even OS?! Also, Microsoft has oversea branches all over the world, localization process is relatively easy. So, you have no clear advantage over it.

OK! Enough for the bad news!….
What is the solution or how to position your software to an unique niche in the market?
My advise is market specialization. That is no generic application, but focus your software solution for specific industry and professional field. Such as doctor office [hospital/clinic] CRM application, security company CRM application, etc…
Why? Because it is not worth for big boys to do tailor job here… that naturally closed the door for big gorillas, so, you only compete with people in your size. Indeed, today’s software world, only two business practice can make it through: specialized service and mass-production. The big boys are in the mass-production side[also called affordability&profitability, that mean consumer can afford to buy it in lower price, while vendor company can sell it in mass quantity to make profit]. This is the reason that why Siebel even has the best technology in CRM [and she was number 1 vendor in the States one time], but just can not survive in long term, because her cost was high, only after merger with Oracle, it can layoff thousands of duplicated jobs, her technological advance can provide profit for the company. …….

I hope I explained the reason of my advise, However, Please Don’t take my remarks literally!