Tata Communications, a leading provider of enterprise data services,  announced that Tata Communications’ On-Demand CRM service is available immediately to organizations of all sizes in India. This marks the company’s entry into the fast growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) space and is an extension of its managed services portfolio. Tata Communications has signed a partnership agreement with SugarCRM, a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, to provide its award-winning CRM applications as the basis for Tata’s entry as a SaaS provider. Since the beginning of this year, Tata Communications and SugarCRM have worked closely together on a joint pilot program to build a CRM service that meets the needs of businesses in India.

Building on its world class network, data center and managed hosting services, Tata Communications is bringing enterprises in India a single, end-to-end service to help companies manage their marketing programs in a cohesive manner, increase effectiveness of sales teams, and provide stronger tools to their customer support teams. With Tata’s On-Demand CRM offering, companies can get up and running quickly without having to invest in additional IT resources and can pay for the CRM service on a subscription model. The subscription service aligns with the growth and needs of individual businesses and delivers a cost-effective avenue for using CRM services. With Tata Communications’ pan India sales and support presence, and its SI partner eco-system, On-Demand CRM will help grow businesses as per the market needs.

“Tata Communications’ On-Demand CRM’s flexible Sales Force Automation module and customizable reporting has allowed us to align our processes to our ever changing business needs,” said Jaideep Chakrabarti of Future Netwings Solutions. “With personalized trainings and support from TCL, we have been able to maximize our investment by harnessing the value and the benefit immediately. From a ROI perspective, this has allowed us to track our customers’ requirement, evaluate sales funnels and productivity from day one.”

“We have seen strong customer demand for subscription based services especially from sectors like Contact Centers, Manufacturing and Pharmaceutical which require high sales, marketing and customer contact management. Also our experience as the number one provider of hosted MS Exchange services in India enables us to offer a robust and reliable service in this space. We are delighted to bring the award winning CRM solution from SugarCRM to our enterprise customers,” said Angira Agrawal, General Manager – SaaS & Enterprise Mobility, Tata Communications.

“After a successful pilot program, we are excited that Tata Communications has decided to make SugarCRM available to its customers,” said Jeff Campbell, vice president of worldwide sales for SugarCRM. “India is one of the fastest growing markets and we see tremendous demand for our CRM services as companies embrace on-demand software to stay competitive in the marketplace. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Tata Communications and helping its customers improve their business through effective customer relationship management.”

Tata Communications’ managed services portfolio now extends beyond network, infrastructure, security and collaboration services into the application space to enable them to transform the way they operate their businesses. On-Demand CRM, enables companies in India to more effectively manage their customer relationships and increase business effectiveness and profitability. This adds to the existing Hosted Business Messaging (based on Microsoft Exchange) that Tata Communications has been offering for the last three years, and will be part of the broader SaaS offerings, including Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS).

About SugarCRM

SugarCRM is the world's leading provider of commercial customer relationship management (CRM) software. Founded as an open source project in 2004, SugarCRM applications have been downloaded over five million times and currently serve over 500,000 users in 75 languages. Over 5,000 customers have chosen SugarCRM's On-Site and Cloud Computing services over lock-in based, proprietary alternatives. In the last year, SugarCRM has been recognized for its customer success and product innovation by CRM Magazine, InfoWorld, Customer Interaction Solutions and Intelligent Enterprise.
Website: www.sugarcrm.com

About Tata Communications

Tata Communications is a leading global provider of a new world of communications. With a leadership position in emerging markets, Tata Communications leverages its advanced solutions capabilities and domain expertise across its global and pan-India network to deliver managed solutions to multi-national enterprises, service providers and Indian consumers.

The Tata Global Network includes one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks, a Tier-1 IP network, with connectivity to more than 200 countries across 400 PoPs, and nearly 1 million square feet of data center and collocation space worldwide.

Tata Communications’ depth and breadth of reach in emerging markets includes leadership in Indian enterprise data services, leadership in global international voice, and strategic investments in operators in South Africa (Neotel), Sri Lanka (Tata Communications Lanka Limited), Nepal (United Telecom Limited), and subject to approval by the Chinese government, China (China Enterprise Communications)

Tata Communications Limited is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India and its ADRs are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. (NYSE:TCL)

www.tatacommunications.com

Forward-looking and cautionary statements

Certain words and statements in this release concerning Tata Communications and its prospects, and other statements, including those relating to Tata Communications’ expected financial position, business strategy, the future development of Tata Communications’ operations, and the general economy in India, are forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including financial, regulatory and environmental, as well as those relating to industry growth and trend projections, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of Tata Communications, or industry results, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, among others, failure to increase the volume of traffic on Tata Communications’ network; failure to develop new products and services that meet customer demands and generate acceptable margins; failure to successfully complete commercial testing of new technology and information systems to support new products and services, including voice transmission services; failure to stabilize or reduce the rate of price compression on certain of the company’s communications services; failure to integrate strategic acquisitions and changes in government policies or regulations of India and, in particular, changes relating to the administration of Tata Communications’ industry; and, in general, the economic, business and credit conditions in India. Additional factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements, many of which are not in Tata Communications’ control, include, but are not limited to, those risk factors discussed in Tata Communications’ various filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Tata Communications is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, updates or alters its forward-looking statements.

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SugarCRM, the world's leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, announced three new dates and destinations for its 2009 CRM Acceleration Road Show. MySQL/Sun and Talend will serve as global sponsors.

Event Details:

* September 15 - Austin, Texas
* September 16 - Houston, Texas
* September 17 - Denver, Colo.

CRM Accelerations are one-day, intensive sessions that help business leaders develop and implement a CRM strategy. These sessions provide attendees with a basic overview of customer relationship management, and progress quickly into real-life demo scenarios, as well as interactive panels with members of the SugarCRM team of experts. CRM Accelerations are geared towards company leaders, both business and technical.

"CRM Accelerations help companies quickly see the value CRM can bring to their business, and how Sugar provides a unique and powerful approach to optimizing your key sales, marketing and support processes," said Chris Harrick, vice president of marketing at SugarCRM. "These hands-on sessions provide the chance for customers to cut through the noise in the CRM marketplace and learn how to get up and running quickly."

Highlights of each CRM Acceleration include:

* "Getting Started With Sugar" will uncover the basics of customer relationship management, and reveal some key aspects of the Sugar solution.
* "Creating Leads and Managing Opportunities" will discuss how to better organize and manage the demand generation cycle and better connect your marketing and sales teams.
* "Pipeline Management and Reporting" will provide some examples of common metrics used to measure sales effectiveness and how to create, share and manage sales reports within SugarCRM to ensure individuals and teams are aligned around common goals.
* "Avoiding CRM Pitfalls" will reveal best practices, as well as bad habits to avoid, while on your way to a successful CRM deployment.
* "Ask the Experts" will offer participants an opportunity to interact with SugarCRM product and deployment experts, who will address general CRM concerns, as well as Sugar-specific questions regarding your CRM initiative.

To register or to learn more about CRM Acceleration events, please visit: www.crmacceleration.com.

About SugarCRM

SugarCRM is the world's leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes. SugarCRM easily adapts to any business environment by offering a more flexible, cost-effective alternative than proprietary applications. SugarCRM's open source architecture allows companies to more easily customize and integrate customer-facing business processes in order to build and maintain more profitable relationships. SugarCRM offers several deployment options, including on-demand, on-site and appliance-based solutions to suit customers' security, integration and configuration needs.

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Orlando, FL - Aspire Technologies QuoteWerks integrates with SugarCRMAspire Technologies Inc., a provider of sales quoting software solutions for the global small and mid-markets, announced its newly developed QuoteWerks integration with SugarCRM (Commercial Open Source CRM) and a new partnership with the leading provider of open source CRM solutions for small, medium, and large enterprises worldwide. Under terms of the partnership, announced July 8, QuoteWerks will be offered through the SugarExchange marketplace.

How a tightly integrated CRM can help

The following advice for customer relationship management (CRM) integration is based on features of the new Aspire Technologies QuoteWerks integration for SugarCRM. Tightly integrated CRM can help manufacturing processes by:

• Searching the CRM database for a contact or account to use in the quote;
• Creating a note record for the contact, save it with the quote, and make it available for review and modification later;
• Creating or updating a sales opportunity when saving a quote;
• Converting the quote to an order when a sale is made and close the sales opportunity as a "closed as won" sale.
• Offering to schedule a follow up call when saving a quote or revision;
• Inserting data fields into the print layout as needed; and
• Pulling lookup list information from the CRM.

Aspire Technologies QuoteWerks SugarCRM search contact
The QuoteWerks integration for SugarCRM is included in Build 47, which was commercially released July 8 by Aspire Technologies. Aspire Technologies explains more about QuoteWerks and SugarCRM integration.

"Sales quoting and CRM go hand in hand," said Keith Carrington, vice president of sales and marketing for Aspire Technologies. "Companies want to have a seamless, accurate, and efficient sales quoting process which makes use of vital customer and sales opportunity data that typically reside in disparate CRM, Accounting, and quoting systems. This integration makes it possible to achieve both quoting automation and a competitive advantage affordably and with minimal effort," Carrington says. QuoteWerks integrates with SugarCRM versions 5.1 and 5.2 including Community, Express, Professional, and Enterprise editions.

"The market for on-demand CRM applications such as SugarCRM is expected to grow by an estimated CAGR of 17.4% between now and 2013," said Carrington. SugarCRM currently has over 500,000 users in 195 countries, while QuoteWerks has 50,000 users in 101 countries. Given the seamless integration between the two applications, both companies anticipate strong demand for their products across multiple industries and markets.

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QuoteWerks and SugarCRM partner to deliver sales quoting efficiencies to the Open Source and On-Demand CRM communities.

Orlando, FL (Vocus/PRWEB ) July 8, 2009 -- Aspire Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of sales quoting software solutions for the global small and mid-markets, today announced its newly developed QuoteWerks integration with SugarCRM and a new partnership with the leading provider of open source CRM solutions for small, medium, and large enterprises word wide. Under terms of the partnership, QuoteWerks will be offered through the SugarExchange marketplace. "Sales quoting and CRM go hand in hand," said Keith Carrington, vice president of sales and marketing for Aspire Technologies, Inc. "Companies want to have a seamless, accurate, and efficient sales quoting process which makes use of vital customer and sales opportunity data that typically reside in disparate CRM, Accounting, and quoting systems. This integration makes it possible to achieve both quoting automation and a competitive advantage affordably and with minimal effort."

Features of the new QuoteWerks integration for SugarCRM include:

* QuoteWerks lets users search the SugarCRM database for a Contact or Account to use in the quote.
* When saving a quote, QuoteWerks automatically creates a Note record for the contact and will attach a linked document to the Note, from which the user can, at a later time, launch QuoteWerks and open the quote for review and modification.
* When saving a quote, QuoteWerks will automatically create or update a Sales Opportunity under the Sales tab for the Contact in SugarCRM.
* When a sale is made, QuoteWerks will convert the quote to an order and also convert the existing SugarCRM Sales Opportunity into a "Closed as Won" sale.
* QuoteWerks will also offer to schedule a follow-up call, in SugarCRM, for the user when saving a quote or quote revision.
* With the built-in QuoteWerks print layout designer, users can easily insert data fields from SugarCRM directly into the QuoteWerks print layout.
* QuoteWerks can pull lookup list information from SugarCRM.

QuoteWerks integrates with SugarCRM versions 5.1 and 5.2 including Community, Express, Professional, and Enterprise editions. For detailed descriptions of the integration features and to view screenshots, please visit http://www.quotewerks.com/sugarcrm.asp.

SugarCRM currently has over 500,000 users in 195 countries, while QuoteWerks has 50,000 users in 101 countries. Given the seamless integration between the two applications, both companies anticipate strong demand for their products across multiple industries and markets.

"The market for on-demand CRM applications such as SugarCRM is expected to grow by an estimated CAGR of 17.4% between now and 2013," said Carrington. "Given the quality and stability of our product and its integration with SugarCRM coupled with the leadership role we hold in the marketplace, QuoteWerks is ideally positioned to serve the growing needs of small, medium, and large enterprise organizations."

The QuoteWerks integration for SugarCRM is included in Build 47 which was commercially released earlier today by Aspire Technologies, Inc. Current QuoteWerks 4.0 users who are current on their Update Maintenance Plan may immediately access and download Build 47 from the QuoteWerks website. Build 47 is also shipping on all new orders of QuoteWerks. QuoteWerks 4.0 users who are not current on their UMP and all existing QuoteWerks 3.0 users should contact Aspire Technologies, Inc. or their QuoteWerks reseller to obtain Build 47. To view a complete list of the 27 new enhancements and features included in Build 47, please visit: http://www.quotewerks.com/updates/UpdateAgent.asp?VersionBuild=4.0.47&Version=4.0&Build=47

About Aspire Technologies and QuoteWerks®
Aspire Technologies, the creators of the award winning QuoteWerks® sales quoting software, is the leading provider of sales quoting software with its award winning QuoteWerks® application deployed to thousands of businesses and enterprises worldwide. QuoteWerks® integrates with all major and leading CRM packages including ACT!^TM, Goldmine®, Maximizer®, MS CRM, Outlook®, TeleMagic®, salesforce.com® and SalesLogix® , SugarCRM^TM and such popular accounting applications as QuickBooks® and Peachtree, enabling businesses in all industries to integrate QuoteWerks® seamlessly into their existing environments. Aspire Technologies is headquartered in Orlando, Florida and is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Sage Software Gold Level Development Partner, and an HP DSP Partner. For more information please visit

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To bring customers the benefits of SugarCRM's (News - Alert) commercial open source CRM solutions, OSSCube has announced a new worldwide partnership with the company.

OSSCube is a provider of global open source enterprise solutions for companies in several areas, and specializes in implementation, customization and support for SugarCRM.

Under the partnership, OSSCube has become the first SugarCRM Gold Partner and SugarCRM Authorized Learning Partner (ALP) in India.

In addition to the rights to resell and implement SugarCRM, the company will also now have access to educational, sales and marketing tools.

"OSSCube has vast experience in SugarCRM implementation, customization, training and understanding and has provided a tailored approach to customers to help them meet their business needs," said Jeff Campbell, vice president of channel sales at SugarCRM.

To help further drive success and adoption rates, OSSCube can now also deliver certified training courses for customers.

"OSSCube is committed to understanding and improving business processes and providing the highest quality business solutions to our clients," said Lavanya Rastogi, president at OSSCube. "We are proud of our partnership with SugarCRM and we are now pleased to provide the competitive advantage of SugarCRM's open source business model to our customers which will drive their business by providing a high value through the CRM solution."

Earlier this month, SugarCRM announced a number of new customer wins as well as the opening of a new corporate headquarters in Munich, Germany and the expansion of its global training program in Europe.

"We see the amazing market potential for SugarCRM and a bright future for commercial open source," said Michael Wagner, a partner at Weburi (News - Alert). "We are participating in the ALP because a successful CRM project requires good knowledge of the software, its abilities and a close relationship with the authors of the solution."

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SugarCRM is enhancing the mobile capabilities of its popular open-source customer relationship management application and making it easier for sales teams to use the software to collaborate.

The enhancements are part of the SugarCRM 5.5 beta the company released Thursday to the SugarCRM community. The final version is expected sometime in a few weeks or possibly a month, depending on the feedback users provide.

The software's new Mobile Studio Editor toolset lets developers customize SugarCRM for mobile devices, providing prebuilt views, fields and layouts for the application modules designated for mobile use, according to the company. A business, for example, could tailor the system to provide field support agents with a streamlined view of the application's customer support module.

The new "dynamic teams" capability lets users add multiple individuals to a CRM record for collaborating on large-scale projects. With that feature, according to SugarCRM, a sales manager could assign an executive, a customer advocate, professional services workers and others to an account rather than just an individual sales representative.

Other new features, including an enhanced Web services framework, make it easier to integrate data from outside sources -- e-commerce systems such as Amazon (NSDQ:AMZN)'s Flexible Payment Services, for example -- with SugarCRM. The beta application also offers improved password-management capabilities for both users and security administrators.

The beta release is available at www.sugarforge.org. SugarCRM is also developing release 6.0 of its application, which is slated to debut around the end of the year or early in 2010, said Martin Schneider, product marketing director.

The new release shows that SugarCRM's development work continues uninterrupted despite the sudden resignation of founding CEO John Roberts on May 7. Board member Larry Augustin is serving as interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement for Roberts

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San Francisco, Palace Hotel

SugarCon '09, SugarCRM's third annual user and customer conference, brings together SugarCRM users, developers, partners and experts from around the world.

Packed with 3 days of business, technical and product presentations, SugarCon provides practical knowledge that you can apply to improve your company's performance.

Highlights include:

* Listen to business and technical leaders about the future of CRM and the Economy
* Preview product roadmaps, upcoming features, and new product introductions
* Share best practices from CRM and Open Source experts and peers from around the world
* Enjoy exciting entertainment and nightlife events in one of the most enchanting cities in the world

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