SMBs moving to mobile CRM

Like many, Chuck Edwards considers his BlackBerry a vital part of his business, but for Edwards, and increasingly for other small-business owners, it's also becoming a way to access CRM systems.

The president of Blue Gecko, a Seattle-based database administration and operating system support firm, Edwards needs to stay connected to his clients at all times. Blue Gecko operates a hosting service, and he needs to know immediately if there's an issue with a client's system.

"A big part of what we do is being responsive when our customers need us," Edwards said. "The last thing a customer wants is to call [a] support organization and have them sound confused."

As president, Edwards gets many of Blue Gecko's client calls first. He needs to direct them to the correct support staff, and he can now do that via the CRM system, which is completely accessible via his mobile device.

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Edwards runs his CRM and ERP systems through an on-demand application from San Mateo, Calif.-based NetSuite Inc., which last month made its application accessible via BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Palm Treo devices via third-party application developers. It's just the latest move to mobile from an on-demand or Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM vendor. Last year,

The NetSuite mobile applications are built on top of

The NetSuite mobile applications cost roughly an additional $25 per user per month on top of an existing NetSuite subscription -- a price some SMBs are ready to pay, given the access to more than just CRM data.

"The requirement for wireless connectivity surpasses the need to just access emails and text messages," said Sheryl Kingstone, program manager, customer-centric strategies at Boston-based Yankee Group. "Now the requirement is for access to real data and the ability to conduct transactions remotely."