Jigsaw, a provider of business information and data services that leverages user-generated content contributed by its global membership, today unveiled an Open Data Initiative.
The Open Data Initiative makes it “easy to search, select and import company data for Free into leading CRM and Contact Management solutions."
SugarCRM (News - Alert), a provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, has announced its support for the Jigsaw Open Data Initiative.
With the help of “Free company data” provided through this latest initiative, SugarCRM expects to make it “simple for its customers” to search, select and import Jigsaw’s accurate and real time company data.
Moreover, as a founding member of Jigsaw's new initiative, SugarCRM is also able to pre-load its CRM solutions for new customers with “Free company data” provided by Jigsaw.
Paul Oh, vice president of Technology Alliances at SugarCRM, said that Jigsaw's Open Data Initiative is a “perfect match” for SugarCRM's commercial open source technology.
He also said that both efforts are committed to breaking down the artificial restrictions of closed software formats and proprietary vendors.
Jim Fowler, CEO and co-founder of Jigsaw, said, “Together with leading CRM and Contact Management solution providers, including SugarCRM we are changing the course of the data industry.”
He pointed out that is one visits any website, directory or mapping application, they can find basic company information in the public domain, however, he said, if that information is needed in aggregate, it can be very expensive or time consuming to gather and integrate that data into business processes.
“Jigsaw believes that company data should not only be freely available but easily accessible and transferable to professional contact systems and enterprise-level CRM solutions,” he added.
SugarCRM and Jigsaw have said they also worked together to develop a native CSV file format that maps to all SugarCRM product editions, enabling SugarCRM customers to populate their CRM solution with Jigsaw's Free company data.
For more, check out the Open Source CRM channel on TMCnet.
Anshu Shrivastava is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.