This reporter's in favor of companies sponsoring charitable events, and is willing to dole out a little free publicity for those who do, so it's hereby noted that SugarCRM has signed on as the Title Sponsor of the Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club's Cat's Hill Classic bicycle race.

SugarCRM provides commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software in several deployment options, including on-demand, on-premise and appliance-based methods.

SugarCRM Cat's Hill Classic bicycle race will be held on Saturday, May 5. The event is legendary for the brutal climb up Nicholson Avenue. The Pro/1/2/U23 race will start at 12:45 pm this year, racing the demanding one-mile course, and the Women's 1/2/3 category will start at 2:20 pm. The 23 percent grade of Cat's Hill is daunting to elite riders as well as amateurs. Good luck, guys.

The Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club has presented the Cat's Hill race continuously since 1974. The SugarCRM Cat's Hill Classic, totally a volunteer project of the Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club, is one of the oldest grass roots cycling races in the US.

The Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club has selected the Alex Smith Foundation and the Los Gatos Skateboard Park as the designated charities for 2007. The Alex Smith Foundation was established by Los Gatos resident and 49er quarterback Alex Smith to help foster care youth transition into adulthood, via developing and promoting programs in six basic areas: Mentoring, Education, Housing, Internships, Jobs and Advocacy.

For all registration information, race information and directions, please visit the race website at www.catshill.org.

Last month SugarCRM announced the immediate release of Project Management for its Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise product lines.

Sugar's Project Management offers what company officials call "the advanced capabilities of a standalone project management application" integrated into SugarCRM's CRM suite.

"As companies become more service-based, managing customer and internal projects becomes even more critical," said John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM.

According to a recent on-demand survey by Nucleus Research, 32 percent of on-demand customers are using on-demand CRM and only 23 percent are using on-demand project management. However, future buying intentions in on-demand shift from CRM to project management, with 29 percent of companies planning to buy on-demand project management and 16 percent planning to buy CRM in the next 12-18 months.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) Net.  For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.