14 DAY TRIAL // Salesforce.com is expanding its product lineup even further to cater to even the smallest businesses. While already offering customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for a variety of needs, from enterprises to small businesses, it is launching a new product aimed at companies with just one or two employees called Contact Manager Edition.
"Salesforce.com has always been committed to democratizing software and making cloud computing accessible to businesses of all sizes," Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, said. "Contact Manager Edition opens up a whole new world for very small businesses and individuals, empowering them to experience success with cloud computing."
Now, the product on the lower scale of Salesforce's lineup, Contact Manager Edition, is also the cheapest at just $9 per month. It is aimed at very small businesses, which don't need all of the features and functionality of a fully fledged CRM software but could use a professional contact management system. The service offers a cloud-based fully featured solution to keep track of business contacts across any number of email providers. Contact Manager supports synchronization with Microsoft's Outlook, web-based email services like Gmail and Yahoo Mail and any other email system. The software also comes with powerful tracking and reporting tools allowing users to keep an eye on the data that interests them the most.
Another fine feature is the Google Apps integration made possible thanks to an ongoing partnership with Google. The Google Apps integration allows users to enjoy the products bundled in the application suite, email, calendar, document and spreadsheet editing, etc., which are closely knit with the CRM features. The hope is, of course, that as their businesses mature, these small users will upgrade to the more expensive and feature-rich offerings from Salesforce's catalogue, which add better CRM features like lead management and sales processing.