SplendidCRM: CRM Idol review

The company’s main markets are small businesses and companies with small IT departments that are looking for a generic CRM solution that it is based on a Microsoft stack. The product is written using the C# language. Within this market they have customers in different industries from healthcare to government. They also have a national and international network of resellers that help develop and sell vertical solutions.

The product has all the main components you can expect from any full-featured CRM system with its respective sales, marketing and support modules. Source code is provided with the solution and integrates with key Microsoft technologies:

1.       Report Design Language

2.       Rules Engine

3.       Workflow Engine

4.       Exchange Server Synchronization

5.       Microsoft Outlook Add-in

6.       Microsoft Word Add-in

Besides providing MS Exchange integration, SplendidCRM also integrates with Google Apps and Paypal. Mobile applications for the iPhone, iPad and Android are under development. The only available social CRM functionality is the ability to use Facebook Connect to login into the application. Social CRM functionalities are part of the roadmap, but SplendidCRM’s customers are not asking yet for any social CRM functionality according to Rony.

SplendidCRM has the same tiers of editions as SugarCRM: community, professional and enterprise, but a full-featured edition is available under the on-premise option. The enterprise edition (SaaS) is $40.00 per user/month and the on-premise edition is $480.00 per user/year and it includes support and upgrades. A minimum of 10 users is required. The community live edition (SaaS) is $10.00 per user/month and the on-premise is free using the open-source option.

SplendidCRM is definitely less expensive than SugarCRM and other CRM solutions, and it is packed with many CRM functionalities. This is a good thing for them. However, SplendidCRM’s problem is that they just want to be like SugarCRM. This is not a good thing. SplendidCRM needs to innovate and be just more than an open source CRM solution based on Microsoft technologies. One way to accomplish this is by providing industry templates for vertical solutions and integration with other solutions such as email marketing and social media management. And besides selling the solution to IT departments, SplendidCRM needs to reach the sales and marketing decision makers. The full-featured functionality that comes out-of-the-box needs to be known by other decision makers beside the IT department.

If you need a less expensive solution than SugarCRM and need open-source in a Microsoft environment, SplendidCRM should be considered as an option to evaluate.

SugarCRM has a free open source version, so the only advantage that SplendidCRM has is the pure Microsoft stack.