Centric CRM Releases Suite, Becomes 'Concursive'
Norfolk, VA-based Centric CRM has changed its name to Concursive Corporation to reflect the evolution of the company's product line to beyond customer relationship management (CRM) functionality. The company also released Concourse Suite 5.0, the latest version of it flagship product. The suite combines traditional CRM features with Web authoring, content management, and Web 2.0 collaboration technologies (such as wikis and blogs).
Concourse Suite is a Java-based solution that enables application and data integration for key company operations, such as HR, inventory and logistical systems. The software tightly integrates Web forms and the CRM system, according to company literature. It supports all file types in the content management system. It also features e-commerce utilities, such as a catalog and shopping cart.
The product can be locally implemented on a company server in the case of a large enterprise with 5,000 active users. Alternatively, it can be scaled down and accessed remotely in a multitenant software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment for small-to-midsize businesses. Concourse emphasizes reliability and security in its SaaS-delivered or hosted solution. The suite runs on nearly any operating system in conjunction with varieties of middleware.
Concourse Suite 5.0 is available under a tiered pricing plan. The SaaS-delivered offering is currently priced at $50 per month. It costs $400 per year for the standalone enterprise version.
Concursive offers free versions (limited to five simultaneous users) of the SaaS and enterprise versions of Concourse Suite 5.0. A special community version, downloadable from the Concursive Web site, is also available exclusively as source code under the Centric Public License (CPL).
The CPL, like the more common General Public License (GPL), allows modification of a project's source code. However, unlike the GPL, any modified project governed by the CPL may only be used internally within the developer's organization instead of being redistributed in a modified state.
