Title contenders gear up for CRM Software Satisfaction Awards

The votes for the Software Satisfaction Awards are in. And some of the biggest names in CRM will go head to head at the ceremony in October.

By John Stokdyk

NetSuite and Salesforce.com are set for a major showdown this autumn when they contest two of the key CRM categories in the Software Satisfaction Awards 2008.

More than 400 members of MyCustomer.com participated in the online survey, which seeks to rate business applications according to direct feedback from end-users.

In the enterprise CRM section, NetSuite CRM+ and Salesforce.com will battle for honours against Oracle's Siebel CRM and Onyx from Consona. The mid-range category shortlist includes Sage CRM and FrontRange's Goldmine along with the two on-demand market leaders.

NetSuite also gained a nomination in the small business CRM category, where it will line up with another on-demand application, Really Simple Systems, along with Mamut Enterprise and Sage's ACT!

The presence of Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Really Simple Systems in the CRM categories confirms the growing strength of software as a service solutions. In the SME sector, 60% of the respondents used on-demand CRM software. SaaS penetration was in excess of one-third in both the mid-range and enterprise CRM categories - and many of those who used systems from nominees such as SageCRM, Mamut and Oracle will also be logging in via their web browsers.

As a benchmark for comparison, just over a quarter of the CRM respondents in last year's Software Satisfaction survey used on-demand software. While the satisfaction ratings in the enterprise category are consistent with last year's results, the suppliers serving small and medium-size businesses have increased their ratings over last year.

The ceremony for the Software Satisfaction Awards, organised by Sift Media and CCH, will take place on Thursday October 30 at The Brewery in London. The Software Satisfaction Annual containing the detailed results will be published on the night of the awards and be available as a PDF download the next morning.

Visit the Software Satisfaction Awards 2008 website for further details.

The full list of The Software Satisfaction Award CRM category shortlists are:

Small business CRM

• ACT! from Sage
• Mamut Enterprise
• NetSuite Small Business
• Really Simple Systems

Mid-range CRM

• Goldmine from FrontRange
• NetSuite CRM
• Sage CRM
• Salesforce CRM

Enterprise CRM

• NetSuite CRM+
• Onyx from Consona CRM
• Oracle's Siebel CRM
• Salesforce CRM

CRM reseller of the year

• Armstrong Consultants
• DMC Software Solutions
• Sapphire Systems

Honourable mentions

• Aspective

BI/CPM software

• SAP Business Objects
• Cognos 8
• People Analytics, COA Solutions

Honourable mentions

• Adaptive Planning
• SPSS 16.0

NB: Due to low numbers of respondents, the call centre software category was dropped from this year's awards and the business intelligence/performance management category has been combined across accounting & finance, HR and CRM.