SugarCRM Inc. announced that it has reached more than 1,000 paying customers since the first edition of its commercial open source customer relationship (CRM) software was released in September 2004. In addition, Sugar Open Source has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times, establishing a worldwide community of users who strengthen the product through contributions, quality improvements, extensions and language translations.

SugarCRM began by serving small and mid-sized businesses but has quickly established large enterprise customers, including Honeywell, Yahoo, Starbucks, State of Oregon, NASA Ames Research, AXA Rosenberg, First Federal Bank, and BDO Seidman.

Customer adoption is being fueled by the flexibility customers gain through multiple deployment options (On-Site, On-Demand or Appliance-Based Solutions), the ubiquity of open source technologies on which SugarCRM is based (Linux, MySQL, Apache, PHP) and SugarCRM's support for multiple platforms (Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux) as well as database support for Oracle, Microsoft and MySQL.

"Customers want to be in control and avoid being locked-in by proprietary software vendors," said John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM. "The move to commercial open source is happening at the operating system, database and application layers. Commercial Open Source is an idea whose time has come."

An additional 1,000,000 users around the globe have downloaded Sugar Open Source, the core SugarCRM application that is available for free. Over 300 extensions and other enhancements have been contributed by the development community and can be downloaded at SugarForge.org or purchased at SugarExchange.com. SugarCRM has been translated into over 40 languages and provides full international support throughout the application.

With Sugar 4.5, SugarCRM is giving customers more control over how the application performs through the use of AJAX, which allows users to quickly display what information is displayed in the application. Companies in a wide variety of industries rely on SugarCRM to build tighter customer relationships and deliver better business performance. For example:

-- The State of Oregon Department of Human Services, Oregon's largest state public agency with over 9,000 employees, uses the Sugar Cube Appliance to manage relations with 35,000 healthcare providers. Using SugarCRM, DHS achieved HIPAA compliance while reducing paper-based healthcare transactions and error rates. "We needed a solution that was secure, accessible, and easy-to-use," said Bill Crowell, Chief Information Office, State of Oregon Department of Human Services. "SugarCRM was one of the great successes within DHS over the last year. We achieved HIPAA compliance, delivered a centralized and secure data set with reporting capacities that were extremely easy to use." -- Sterling PCU, a provider of specialized equipment to the appliance and automotive industry, was presented with a Stevie Award in the CRM Implementation & User Adoption category at the 2006 Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards in Las Vegas. Sterling uses Sugar Professional On-Demand to manage all aspects of the sales process, from the initial lead to custom quoting. Sterling's use of SugarCRM stood out because the company was able to automate complex and lengthy business processes within SugarCRM while achieving user adoption levels of over 90 percent. "We are honored to receive this Stevie Award," said Christopher Edwards, General Manager of Sales and Marketing, Sterling PCU. "It is a fine recognition of an incredible partnership between Sterling PCU and SugarCRM."