What is the outlook for hosted CRM? I've noticed that it is getting more attention lately but I thought most vendors went out of the business.
Hosted CRM has enjoyed a great deal of attention recently and the last year may have been its high watermark to date. Once nearly abandoned by most people as impractical, it is showing surprising strength today. There are several reasons for this including vastly improved technology, economic drivers, and changes in customer attitudes.
For example, the economic slowdown of the last few years forced everyone to become even more conscious of costs and benefits associated with enterprise deployments and many companies evaluated hosted solutions for their economy. What they found were solutions that were robust and cost effective and it appears that the word has spread. Today more than half of the people who enter the CRM market looking for solutions say they will evaluate a hosted alternative. Moreover, there are numerous new applications that are being developed with a hosted model in mind and these applications make greater use of the Web than ever opening up new business niches.
Comprehensive customizable CRM, consumer packaged goods CRM and Open Source CRM.