Open source fever spreads to CRM sector

NEWS A group of companies have joined forces to develop open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications. The five companies- Buildscape, Riskwise, Stone Analytics, VA Linux systems and WebCE- have formed OpensourceCRM.org which aims to create a complete set of free CRM applications for business users based on Linux. The first product will be available for download on 10 March and is designed to improve companies' email customer support. It integrates email systems with relationship management applications and the customer support desk. Other open source CRM applications are expected to follow later in the year.