对这个话题感兴趣的朋友可以在blog上跟贴，可从这里进入或者http://blog.c3crm.com/?q
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
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[EmailResponseManagementSys
[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.
Re：impression&suggestion
kansas，多谢您的建议。
上次用英文回答您，某些人有意见，这次就用中文回了
回答如下：
1）statistics in CRM application
由 于C3CRM所面对的客户的CRM用户大概在5-50 Users，在国内这样的公司很少出钱购买dataMining
2）To include the Email system into the CRM application
集成Email也是用户的需求，但对于使用outlook的用户我
3）Somehow the log in process takes too much time[roughly 30 seconds]
我们将研究一下代码，检查一下为什么需要这么长时间
4）3 tier architecture
由 于我也是做Java出身，对你说的东西还是深有感触的
可能你在 美国访问我们的demo比较慢，你可以访问一下这个demo
非常感谢您的建议！
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
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!
dfar2008:I was going to
dfar2008:
I was going to propose a case study….. However, I am not seeing any comment since my last post …. Maybe nobody is interested in….
Kansas
kansas,reply is here
我的回复在上次您发表评论的文章下面，地址：http://blog.c3crm.com/?q=node/106#comment-144
大家看到这么长的英文文章，不是很容易看懂，下次我会把您的评论翻译一下，便于大家阅读。如果您用中文写，效果会更好一些，呵呵。
我把这个评论发在国内有名的IT社区DoNews社区，比较受欢迎，已经阅读170多次
http://home.donews.com/donews/article/9/92760.html
我把您的评论也放在C3CRM产品顾问小组的电子文档里，已经下载250多次。
http://www.sugarforge.org/frs/?group_id=91&release_id=214
大家还是比较关注的。
期待您的评论！
To dfar2008
周末休息，用家里的电脑给你发送一些信息.
Peoplesoft的CRM在被Oracle兼并前其最稳定的软件版本号为peopleTool8.43和CRM8.8. 目前的最新版本为peopleTool8.47, 年底前Oracle大概会推出popleTool8.48. 以下是CRM8.8的指导手册名单。请注意! 每一个手册都是一本厚厚的书：
Welcome to the PeopleBooks Library
Choose a PeopleBook:
Using PeopleSoft Applications
About These PeopleBooks
Crystal Reports for PeopleSoft
PS/nVision
PeopleCode Developer’s Guide
PeopleCode Reference
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Advisor PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Application Fundamentals PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Automation and Configuration Tools PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Call Center Applications PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Collaborative Selling PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM FieldService PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Marketing Applications PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Mobile Applications PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Multichannel Applications PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Portal Pack PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Quality Management PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Sales PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Services Foundation PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM for Communications PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM for Energy PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM for Financial Services PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM for Government PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM for Insurance PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 Catalog Management PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 Common Partner Registration PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 Configurator for CRM PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 Data Transformer PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 Enterprise Components PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 Enterprise Pricer PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 Online Marketing Administration Guide
PeopleSoft 8.8 Online Marketing Integration Guide
PeopleSoft 8.8 Online Marketing User’s Guide
PeopleSoft Administration Tools
PeopleSoft Application Designer
PeopleSoft Application Engine
PeopleSoft Component Interfaces
PeopleSoft Cube Manager
PeopleSoft Integration Broker
PeopleSoft Integration Tools and Utilities
PeopleSoft Multichannel Framework
PeopleSoft Optimization Framework Guide
PeopleSoft Process Scheduler
PeopleSoft Query
PeopleSoft Server Tools Administration
PeopleSoft Tree Manager
PeopleSoft Upgrade Assistant
PeopleSoft Workflow
PeopleTools Global Technology
PeopleTools Internet Technology
PeopleTools Mobile Agent PeopleBook
PeopleTools Security
SQR for PeopleSoft Developer’s Guide
SQR for PeopleSoft Language Reference
Supported Integration Technologies
************************************************
因为你们的软件偏重于销售.
在此我以PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Sales PeopleBook 为例，
以下是其内容目录
*************************************************
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Sales PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Sales PeopleBook
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Sales Preface
PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM Sales Preface
PeopleSoft Application Fundamentals
PeopleSoft CRM Automation and Configuration Tools
About These PeopleBooks
Part 1: Setting Up PeopleSoft Sales
Part 1: Setting Up PeopleSoft Sales
Getting Started With PeopleSoft Sales
Getting Started With PeopleSoft Sales
PeopleSoft Sales Overview
PeopleSoft Sales Business Processes
PeopleSoft Sales Integrations
PeopleSoft Sales Implementation
Setting Up Sales Business Units
Setting Up Sales Business Units
Setting Up Sales Business Units
Setting Up Sales Security and Personalization
Setting Up Sales Security and Personalization
Understanding Sales Users
Setting Up Sales Access Profiles
Setting Up Account Access Profiles
Setting Up Sales Users
Setting Up Sales Teams
Setting Up Sales Leads and Opportunities
Setting Up Sales Leads and Opportunities
Setting Up Your Sales Process
Setting Up Component Field Default Values
Setting Up Lead Ratings
Setting Up Assignment Weights
Setting Up Lead Reject and Turnback Reasons
Setting Up Sales Contacts
Setting Up Sales Partners
Setting Up Sales Competitors
Setting Up Buying Criteria
Setting Up Lead Sources
Setting Up Fallout Reasons
Setting Up Pipeline Segments
Setting Up Sales Lead Import Templates
Setting Up Sales Forecasts
Setting Up Sales Forecasts
Defining Forecast Elements
Setting Up Sales Events
Setting Up Sales Events
Setting Up Sales Event Handlers
Part 2: Working With Territories
Part 2: Working With Territories
Understanding Sales Territory Trees
Understanding Sales Territory Trees
Understanding Sales Trees
Understanding Territories
Understanding Configurable Assignment Criteria
Creating Territory Trees
Creating Territory Trees
Using the Territory Management Home Page
Configuring Assignment Criteria
Creating Sales Access Profiles
Creating Sales Users
Creating a Territory Tree
Granting Visibility
Running the Sales Access Update Process
Reorganizing or Deleting a Territory Tree
Reorganizing or Deleting a Territory Tree
Understanding Tree Reorganization, Reassignment, and Deletion
Reorganizing a Territory Tree
Deleting Trees or Tree Nodes
Part 3: Managing Sales Leads and Opportunities
Part 3: Managing Sales Leads and Opportunities
Understanding Sales Leads and Opportunities
Understanding Sales Leads and Opportunities
Understanding Leads and Opportunities
Working With List Pages and Details Components
Working With Opportunities
Working With Opportunities
Understanding the Difference Between Leads and Opportunities
Managing Opportunities
Creating Sales Leads and Opportunities
Creating Sales Leads and Opportunities
Creating a Sales Lead or Opportunity
Importing Sales Leads Data
Identifying a Sales Lead or Opportunity
Identifying a Sales Lead or Opportunity
Identifying a Sales Lead
Identifying a Sales Opportunity
Identifying the Customer for a Lead or Opportunity
Identifying Customer Contacts for a Lead or Opportunity
Assigning a Lead or Opportunity
Assigning a Lead or Opportunity
Assigning Sales Representatives to a Lead or Opportunity
Assigning the Sales Team for a Lead or Opportunity
Accepting, Rejecting, or Turning Back a Lead
Associating or Assigning Partners to a Lead or Opportunity
Reassigning a Sales Representative’s Leads and Opportunities
Qualifying a Lead or Opportunity
Qualifying a Lead or Opportunity
Identifying the Source Campaign for a Lead or Opportunity
Identifying the Sales Survey for a Lead or Opportunity
Identifying the Competition for a Lead or Opportunity
Developing the Proposal for a Lead or Opportunity
Developing the Proposal for a Lead or Opportunity
Identifying Products and Prices for the Proposal
Identifying the Customer’s Buying Criteria for a Lead or Opportunity
Including Opportunity Items in Forecasts
Viewing Quotes and Orders Generated for a Lead or Opportunity
Emailing a Proposal Package to a Contact
Identifying Sales Tasks for a Lead or Opportunity
Identifying Sales Tasks for a Lead or Opportunity
Identifying and Assigning Sales Tasks
Viewing Tasks
Adding Notes and Viewing History and Attributes for a Lead or Opportunity
Adding Notes and Viewing History and Attributes for a Lead or Opportunity
Adding Notes and Attachments
Viewing History for a Lead or Opportunity
Viewing Attributes
Sending Sales Emails and Other Correspondence
Sending Sales Emails and Other Correspondence
Generating Ad Hoc Email Notifications
Generating Letters and Enclosures
Viewing the Opportunity Pipeline
Viewing the Opportunity Pipeline
Understanding the Opportunity Pipeline
Common Elements Used for the Opportunity Pipeline
Viewing the Opportunity Pipeline
Part 4: Using Forecasts
Part 4: Using Forecasts
Understanding Sales Forecasts
Understanding Sales Forecasts
Understanding Forecasts
Understanding Revenue and Shadow Forecasts
Understanding Rollup Forecasts
Using Forecasts
Using Forecasts
Working With Revenue and Shadow Forecast Lists
Selecting a New Revenue or Shadow Forecast to Generate
Generating a Revenue or Shadow Forecast
Auto Generating Revenue or Shadow Forecasts
Generating a Revenue or Shadow Rollup Forecast
Viewing Forecast Summaries
Inactivating and Locking Forecasts
Archiving and Restoring Forecasts
Part 5: Working With Customer Accounts
Part 5: Working With Customer Accounts
Working With Customer Sales Accounts
Working With Customer Sales Accounts
Working With Customer Accounts
Understanding PeopleSoft Sales Smart Views
Understanding PeopleSoft Sales Smart Views
Understanding Smart Views
Launching and Working With Forecast Smart Views
PeopleSoft Sales Reports
PeopleSoft Sales Reports
Report Description
Report Samples
*****************************************
结束语:
I am not trying to discourage you, instead, I am just trying to prove what I told you last time: During the past 15 years the software for CRM has gone too far already. There is no future for any home-grown generic CRM application. Take peoplesoft application as an example here. The CRM is only one module of peoplesoft application, a majority of clients use Human Resource module called peoplesoft HR, and banks use peoplesoft Finance, etc…. each of these modules has millions of lines of code, and covers every aspect of business practice. How can a new startup to catch up with those giant corporations?! We heard about story of 2-3 geeks [while dressed in shorts and sandals, sitting in their garage ,and talking to their pals over the phone] had written[invented] an application, and then, became millionaires. But those stories are history now…… So, you have to go for specialized area to avoid direct competition with big boys like Oracle/SAP/Microsoft. As an entrepreneur, you may want to put yourself into a bigger picture…. While… while… the whole world become smaller and smaller every day, especially in the technology field, there is no isolated island or oasis for any one those days.
hope this one is easy to read!
The beauty of software is on its engineering side. That is why I like programming so much, and ended up as an engineer. Let’s stay away from general topic about CRM, and do a case analysis/brain storm. This may bring us closer.
I have search word of CRM in http://www.baidu.com tonight, and I saw tons of CRM application available for sale. By looking at demo in few websites. I have a feeling that most of those software are used by salesman for pre-sales activity, and there is no emphasize on post-sales which happen to be the main focus of CRM [CustomerRelationshipManagement] application in the West.
Let’s take SuperCRM3.5 [http://www.huaertek.com/huaertek/chinese/crm4.asp] as an example. By a careful review of its 基本功能 , I saw it focus on the 销售自动化包括客户档案管理，联系人管理，商机管理，商业活动管理，向导式的自动报价系统，合同生成和管理系统，订单处理系统，费用管理，员工绩效，统计分析系统等模块组成。 Indeed, this is a basically 销售自动化 software application. [How is my copy&paste skill?! Hahaha... say something good! … wink wink]
The modern business world is characterized by its strong emphasis on post-sales service. This is why when IT industry flourished due to the rapid development of computer science, the service oriented CRM application has being embraced by the business community immediately.
Now, case study:
Let’s assume Mr. Wang owns a utility company that sells natural gas to residential area in a major city. Is it possible for him to use SuperCRM3.5 ? No, he will not use this software even it is for free! As we know that most utility companies often have monopoly due to the heavy investment in infrastructure. So, Mr. Wang’s business model is not selling merchandise, but providing service. Selling is not the focal point. Customizing a sales oriented application into a service oriented application may end up with a hefty price tag that no one is willing to pay for. [Nowadays, IT consulting fee is not cheap in the West, $200-$300 per hour is a normal charge]
Now, Mr. Wang made a smart move to search for an application fit his business model. The following listed features of a CRM application can provide good service to residents who buy gas:
It should contain:
[1]user info
[2]customer info
[3]company product
[4]vendor info
Sounds simple? Yes, it is indeed!
Now, let’s see if city resident Mrs. Zhang bought an apartment that has gas stove. She picked up the phone ordering the service. Ms. XX001, the customer Representative from Mr. Wang’s company, answered the phone call while logging into the SugarCRM application[Background action#1]. Ms. XX001 key in the following information of Mrs. Zhang: address [Background action#2], last name, first name, and ID number [Background action#3]. The preferred billing method [Background action#4]. Since Mrs. Zhang wants to order a special cook top, Ms. XX001 also selected the item from the company product name list [Background action#5]. If everything is smooth, she completes the transaction, and gives Mr. Zhang the confirmation number for the order [Background action#6].
OK, let’s see what SugarCRM has been doing in the background:
[action#1] The radius server is working on validation, it check to see if XX001 has privilege to log into SugarCRM, and verify if XX001 has power to process new orders.
[action#2] search engine runs against mapping database to see if company pipeline reaches Mrs. Zhang’s address.
[action#3] Credit checking program runs against customer database to see if Mrs. Zhang has a delinquent account history. Or check with 3rd party database for bad credit history
[action#4] If billing method is credit card, it will verify the card number and charge for initial setup fee through secure server that connected to Credit Card Company.
[action#5] send out shipping notice to the product inventory department or 3rd party vendor
[action#6] trigger the provisioning system that will send notice to service department to do field work [install gas meter, etc..]
Assuming in the next day, the product department dropped the shipment in the post office, and entered the info into the SugarCRM. Then, system automatically generated email/mail to Mrs. Zhang. And few days later, the service department installed the equipment, and turned on the switch. Of course, this information also gets into SugarCRM. And exactly one month after Mrs. Zhang has her gas pipeline turned on, she will receive a monthly bill. That means billing engine working and posted the charge on her account. If city construction work disrupts the pipeline, field workers will do inspection/repair, and give a feedback to the SugarCRM. Then, system will send out apology letter to the customers in the neighborhood. If Mrs. Zhang has questions about her bill, Customer Rep will be able to open her account in SugarCRM and explain the billing history to her, or make the adjustment.
To the front-end user, all those transaction/operation is nice and easy! However, the back-end program is much more complicated. CRM has to hook up with Billing system, Order management system, service provisioning system, etc… without access those info in real time, the quality of service will be compromised. Some features seem not CRM related, such as secure connection with 3rd party company. But we have to take it into consideration while designing the system architecture. While… Let’s take the action#1 as an example. One may say “why do we need a radius server? We only have 50 employees”. While.. .. While .. .. How long does a utility company stay in business? 10 years? 20 years? In todays free labor market, nobody can expect 50 employees will all stay on the same job for more than 5 years. Should we delete all those inactive employee accounts, realistic answer is NO! Within 5 years time frame a 50 employees company may ends up with 500 user account, active and inactive. An architect must be able to predict or forecast the system load 5 years down the road. Also, how about if company wants to launch online service to customers? so that, customers can access his/her account through web, instead of calling customer Rep .. .. And how about those complicated privilege, role, permission, etc.. .. It is better to have a separate module.
……
[it is getting late….. ]
Sorry, I did not see your post on the original thread
Re:Before we discuss the
新
由 dfar2008 在 周一, 2006-03-13 09:43 提交
kansas,you are great!
您的分析非常精彩，虽然我一直关注Oracle,Siebel,Sap,PeopleSoft,Microsoft,Google，最近也从网上看到了Google CL2
的图片，但是我从没有这么系统的想过CRM的发展，这次经您分析，我的思路比以前开阔多了，在此对您表示深深的感谢。
前一段时间，我一直在考虑C3CRM的发展，要走什么样的路，要从哪点突破，与很多人谈过，与搞投资的陈俊华同学经常探讨，也经常向dontian请教，还曾经找过我们公司(HP GDCC)的Sap老大谈过，他们的建议和您的一样，要专注于某个行业，虽然我听取了他们的建议，也为今年做了计划，要在三个行业有所成绩，但是我没有太大的动力，只是感觉这只是一个发展途径，而不是必须这么做，经过这次与您的讨论，使我觉得我们必须专注某些行业才能有所发展，这或许是唯一出路。这使我想起了美国的QAD，专门做电子行业和汽车行业的ERP，在这两个行业竟然占60%的份额(大致数字)，而SAP在这两个行业仅占20%多，国内的明源CRM，专门做房地产行业的CRM，05年也挤进了国内CRM前10强，想起2000年我如果坚持做房地产行业的软件，说不定还能做出来点成绩呢，:).
但是我有点不明白，微软最近刚和美国的商业开源CRM厂商SugarCRM合作，SugarCRM将在4.5版本以微软的开源协议发布一个分支，不知道微软用意何在？
Sorry, I did not see your post until this morning……
Base on your English website, the word 开源 is “open source”. You can see a lot of open source programs at http://www.gnu.org. My understanding is that open source code can be modified, however, people should release the revised version of code, and most important rule is: nobody can sell software that based on open source code! This does not fit 微软 business model. It is indeed that 微软 never release her source code……. If you ask for my guess/speculation ….. hmm….. … I think 微软 is trying to initiate a brain storm project here…. Get some fresh ideas and improve her own CRM or other business application. We have to remember that Microsoft is a for-profit company, and she has a huge group of sharp businessmen. In the past, I have seen too many small firms who tried to peg on Microsoft failed! So, I am not very optimistic about it….
Also,
I found out that there is a conceptual misunderstanding about open source code among some people in China … let me get into this issue next time…
不太适合call-senter用
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.
我也有这个看法，好像是给销售公司用，不能给一般的企业做客户关系管理
to kansas
你写的这几个评论我看了好几遍，一直没给你回复，是在等我们的3.0开发版的demo发布，今天终于出来了，但还在改善和开发中。 http://ohpacking.biz/c3crm/index.php admin/admin will/will
首先你先看一下我在blog上转发的C3CRM产品顾问小组里chiction写的有关国内企业的有关情况。
然后我对你以上评论谈一下我的看法。
在新版本中，我们增加了有关售后服务的模块，我希望在销售(国内比较注重)、营销、售后等三个接触点加强对客户的管理，提高客户的满意度等等，与你讲的Post Sale有点吻合，:).
你看到的C3CRM可能现在来说是比较General，但是由于我们做C3CRM不是很久，很多基本功能还没完善，我打算近期完善这些基本功能，然后再专注于某几个行业提供特殊版本，因为基本功能做好了，扩展也比较容易，效率也会比较高。
国内中小企业的信息化状况基本上是chiction所讲的，可能与你所想象中的不太一样，如果拿PeopleSoft的CRM来满足这些企业，这些企业肯定承受不了Oracle的价格，一个Oracle的License费用就比较贵(今天看到sony购买Oracle的License费用是4万美金/CPU/年)。所以国内企业目前所需要的是大而全但不是特别复杂的系统，而且价格也不要太高，现在国内的CRM竞争比较激烈，一个CRM几百元都卖的，你所说的SuperCRM就是不到1000元，尽管做的不咋地，功能不是很强，但是他们的销售额还不错。现在Salesforce在国外做的比较火，在国内已开展业务，但是做的不怎么好，价格偏高(5000-10000元/用户/年)是比较重要的原因，尽管国内很多企业不原意把客户数据放在Salesforce的服务器上。所以说如果有好的开源CRM，国内企业会选择它的。
现在Sourceforge上流行的开源ERP-CRM：Compiere做的还不错，国内有不少合作伙伴，很多企业购买了他们文档、语言包和服务等。(有个Compiere的合作伙伴刚加入了C3CRM产品顾问小组)
尽管我觉得我们有必要提供special service，这样才能生存，并避免与大企业竞争，但是我还是想把C3CRM做成一个易扩展的平台，每个企业都可以根据自己的需求去扩展它，最好的情况不懂技术的人都可以根据自己的需求去扩展C3CRM，虽然达到这样的目标有点难度，但是这是我追求的目标，为国内的中小企业在CRM方面提供一个好的选择，不能总是让国外的公司把握我们的信息命脉。
IT界是一个充满幻想的领域，最近zimbra(一家用Ajax技术开发在线邮件系统的公司)，对外宣布获得了1600万美金的投资，要挑战微软的outlook。http://www.zimbra.com
关于你在Case Study最后一段所谈的，我缺乏这方面的考虑，希望能多向你请教。
To dfar2008
I have read chiction对中小企业需求的总结 several times over the weekend. Due to the fact that I have been living here for the past 16 years, I guess I am completely off in touch of reality with IT industry of China .. And the worst of all, I was not in IT field when I was back at home, so, I never had chance to talk to anyone in IT industry when I went home last year .. ..