The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket On-Premise Sales Force Automation, Q4 2005 (Forrester)

The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket On-Premise Sales Force Automation, Q4 2005 Small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) continue to invest in sales force automation (SFA), and many seek on-premise deployment rather than one of the increasingly popular software-as-a-service (SaaS) options. While SaaS appeals with its pay-as-you-go pricing, quicker deployments, and easier upgrades, many firms we surveyed cite concerns about long-term price, security, and weak customization and integration capabilities. Forrester's April 2005 Wave™ evaluated the hosted SFA market; this report assesses the state of eight midmarket on-premise SFA applications across 151 criteria. Included in this report, as always, is an interactive vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product evaluations and customizable rankings. Some tips for successful, rapid implementation: Jump-start deployments with vertical editions. Find an industry-specific edition that comes preconfigured with relevant objects, fields, and reports. Take advantage of partner add-ons and third-party services. Keep it simple. Don't over-customize; don't buy more than you need -- work with key users from all divisions and roles to decide what the business requires.

Pivotal, Sage CRM SalesLogix, and Siebel Professional Edition are best suited for medium-size firms (chart is shown here). FrontRange and Maximizer Software fit the needs of small businesses; a similar chart for small firms is in the full report. Scorecards for all firms reviewed are available at forrester.com.

Microsoft CRM Update (Line56)

Not hosted yet, but tighter integration with Microsoft tools attractive to many users, notes analyst

Portrait Software/Quadstone Deal Shows Mixed Promise

Portrait Software will gain advanced analytics applications by acquiring Quadstone. But customers must continue to rely on Portrait's partnerships with business intelligence vendors for basic query/reporting functionality.

Portrait Software/Quadstone Deal Shows Mixed Promise (Gartner)

Portrait Software will gain advanced analytics applications by acquiring Quadstone. But customers must continue to rely on Portrait's partnerships with business intelligence vendors for basic query/reporting functionality.

SAP to Go On-Demand in ’06 (Red Herring)

Applications software giant says it's likely to deliver software over the Internet next year.

Integrating Customer Relationship Management through Software As A Service

The customer relationship management (CRM) market is changing. Over half the market is served by small vendors. Fully integrated business suites like NetSuite standalone solutions like salesforce.com, are heeding the…