Edison's Attic Will Host a Tailored, DotNet Version of SugarCRM.

Edison's Attic announces plans to release SugarDN: A CRM Package targeted to a Dozen Specific Professional Services industries.

CHICAGO. January, 2007. Edison's Attic, the maker of BigTime (a time and project management tool for professional services firms), will release a hosted CRM package built on the popular SugarCRM open-source platform. The new offering will use the standard SugarCRM database, and will place a suite of DotNet based tools on top of it. The goal is to provide an open system that is pre-fitted to each of the dozen industries Edison's Attic serves.

The final system will be released in the summer of 2007. The new hosted version of SugarCRM (code named 'SugarDN') has been custom fitted to the professional services industries that Edison's Attic targets, and the company is planning a one-click startup program for existing BigTime customers.

"Our initial product launch was targeted at our existing BigTime customers," says Brian Saunders, Edison's CEO. "We've used that limited release to zero in on resolving two key issues: giving lawyers, accountants, engineers, designers and IT professionals a CRM package that's custom-fitted to them. And, giving our existing BigTime customers a one-click tool to upgrade from BigTime to SugarCRM."

Saunders indicated that the initial product (launched quietly in 2006 with no marketing and very little PR) has been so popular among Edison's core customers, that the firm has closed registration for the general public and will re-open it in the summer of 2007.

SugarCRM is an open-source CRM system that was designed to overcome the limitations inherent in one-size-fits-all CRM systems: every company has it's own DNA. Now, SugarDN takes the concept of open-source one step further with a managed CRM package that is already custom-fitted to one of a dozen specific industries.

"The CRM package a lawyer uses is going to be different that the package an IT services firm uses. For a lawyer, the documents they produce have a life of their own, a cycle that the system needs to track. For an IT professional, a call is more than just a one-time communication with their customers. It's often the starting point for an issue that needs to be tracked through to completion," says Jake Matyas, director of customer care at Edison's Attic. "Those differences are subtleties that are hard to explain, and even harder to code."

While a law firm or an IT firm could use an open-source solution like SugarCRM as a base and then create their own custom code to make it fit, most of them don't. Even a small adjustment to an open-souce system could result in weeks of IT-spending. Consequently, even large professional services firms are loathe to take those projects on.

SugarDN eliminates the need. It combines an industry-leading open-source CRM system with a deep knowledge of several very-specific industries. The result: a CRM package that thinks like a lawyer (or an accountant, or a graphic designer) right out of the box.

"Forget open-ended IT projects that promise a well-tailored system but rarely deliver," says Matyas. "Our customers will login to a custom-fitted solution that has already proven itself in their specific industry."

"We've basically eliminated the need to go out and experiment with dozens of custom add-ons to SugarCRM. Our engineering customers know that the system they're using has already been proven out by other engineering firms. Lawyers don't have to teach an IT person what a docket is, they just have to login and go to work," says Saunders. "If open source is a platform, then custom-fitted solutions like these are the products that platform was meant to produce."

"People can use our CRM system for lawyers for a year," he contends, "and then pack up their database and take it next door. As long as the system next door uses SugarCRM as it's base, they'll be able to flip a switch and move to another provider or just bring the whole thing in house."

Of course, Saunders is betting they'll want to stay.

"For starters, we've hooked up the whole thing to BigTime and QuickBooks, so the chief obstacles to the flow of information in a typical professional services firm are removed," he says. "Then, we've created customer views that give a true-360 degree view of a customer: everything from calls and emails to budgets and invoices."

That type of deep integration is what has made BigTime one of the fastest growing PSA solutions on the market, and Saunders is betting that the same approach will help Edison's Attic win big in the CRM space. To figure out if he's right, stay tuned in 2007 for their general release.

Founded in 2001, Edison's Attic, Inc. is a global provider of software solutions for growing professional services firms. Their solutions are custom fitted to dozens of specific industries, so they provide a precise fit for customers in industries like IT services, PR, Marketing, Design/Advertising, Architecture, Engineering, Accounting, Legal and Management Consulting.

BigTime, the company's flagship product, provide timesheet, expense, project and account management for QuickBooks users.