I had the opportunity to send a day last week attending SugarCon 2010, SugarCRM's annual user conference in San Francisco. In addition to a great program which included a social CRM track led by Mitch Lieberman and keynote from Paul Greenberg I had the chance to chat with customers and SugarCRM executives about the company and it's latest product release. One of the striking differences to me in the conference this year was the shift in focus from leading with the open source message to one of focusing on the product's rich functionality, modern user interface, partner cloud initiatives, mobile and a growing interest in the social CRM movement. Not that SugarCRM is forgetting its open source roots, its just that they are stepping up the game a bit with a broader set of differentiators.
During the conference I had the pleasure of sitting down with new CEO Larry Augustin who became interim CEO last May and subsequently took the role permanently last November. Larry, who was a member and chairman of Sugar's board for the last four+ years, is an experienced CEO, VC and was recently named the most influential business executive in open source. His strong leadership is clearly having a positive impact on the company and its partners. SugarCRM blends a unique combination of a strong open source community, progressive CRM product, good partner and cloud strategy, mobile and growing interest in social business, it will be interesting to watch their progress this year as they come off of a strong 2009.
During the morning session my friend and colleague Paul Greenberg delivered a strong keynote on social CRM and the social customer. At the end of the session SugarCRM's Mitch Lieberman conducted a short interview on some follow up questions to the keynote. I've recorded Paul's response to questions on dealing with crisis in a social environment and social for small and medium business.
