The powerful open source CRM system "Sugar CRM" was released in version 4.0 yesterday

New in Sugar Open Source 4.0

• Access Control by Role: Manage what a department has access to see, and what they can do with that information based on their credentials. Role security is new to Sugar Open Source.

• Inbound Email Response: Reduces costs by automatically converting emails into customer cases, leads or contacts – and incorporates escalation rules and queue management for load balancing customer support.

• Enhanced Campaign Management: Develop, test, launch, and measure lead-generation activities with a heavy emphasis on email marketing. Manage subscription lists, suppression rules, and target group segmentation.

• Enhanced Lead Sharing: Automate the transfer of leads from marketing automation into the sales pipeline with one simple click.

Other notable features

• SugarCRM has plugins for Microsoft Outlook – syncing emails, contacts, calendar entries between the groupware and the SugarCRM system

• SugarCRM now has a plugin for Word

What I am missing as of today is IM/Phone integration with skype…

The Sugar CRM system is by far the most enhanced CRM system I know about – they offer a great $40/month/user hosted version, which should keep away all installation, maintenance and ugprade hassles out of your way – I think I might go with that very soon!