Today we're announcing that ConcourseSuite is available as a cloud service. What makes this unique, is that you can now get started with a CRM for only $99/month, no matter how many users you have. Organizations use CRM in many different ways, so Concursive has created a new deployment option that is based on actual usage – the more bandwidth and storage you require, the more resources you pay for.

To put this in perspective, a traditional Enterprise-Class CRM license is based on many factors including number of users, access to source, integration, customization options, support, maintenance and more.

Organizations that choose ConcourseSuite in the Cloud receive:

• A complete customer relationship management site: containing Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Marketing and Help Desk, plus API access for integration
• ConcourseCloud CRM software license: the software license for the first month is billed immediately. You will be automatically billed each subsequent month from your date of purchase and are free to cancel your subscription at any time by contacting us: support at concoursecloud.com
• Administrator access: your contact information will be used to create the first site user when your instance is ready -- you can invite any number of other users
• A secure cloud instance: your site comes with SSL when you use our custom domain names; contact us to use your own domain name and SSL certificate
• Fully supported and periodically updated: your site will always have the latest enhancements
• Access to support: you can reach out to the ConcourseCloud CRM Help Desk with setup, billing, usage or any other questions you have
• Account notices: ConcourseCloud will notify you about news and account information

 Check out Concursive's CRM pricing, then signup here to get started with your own cloud-based CRM from Concursive.

ConcourseSuite reaches version 6.1. CRM users will notice improvements to the Leads and Marketing modules, while a number of improvements correct issues that have been reported since the previous release. The development team has squeezed in updates to a number of libraries which extends support to newer versions of PostgreSQL and Asterisk. Please take the normal precautions for upgrading (like backing up the previous version, database and storage files).

The changelog follows...

ConcourseSuite 6.1 is all about product consistency and stability. The 6.1 release is in active development and might include a few unannounced features that we are working on.

ConcourseSuite is available in early access form to customers and partners, and once 6.1 is released the binary will be available for download. We continue to work on making the source available but we don't yet know when that will be.

If you are interested in the latest commercial version of ConcourseSuite, please contact us so we can get in touch with you. Customers can choose to use ConcourseSuite On-Demand, ConcourseSuite Hosted or ConcourseSuite Enterprise.

ConcourseSuite also works well with ConcourseConnect. ConcourseConnect allows you to create groups or departments of users, then enable them with Social CRM tools for true multi-tenancy.

In CRM 6, we continue to use Java JSR-168 portlets and have expanded the areas in which they can be used.  Portals are great for flexibility, and by having embedded portals throughout the CRM application, integrators can adapt pages to better suit their customers.  Portlets can be used to mashup data from other sources, or to even embed whole other applications in a context-sensitive way.

In the following example, the Accounts page has been fitted with financial information that pulls an account's stock holdings right into the Accounts page.  The page also displays the accounts latest issues or phone calls, providing more information to the sales representative with fewer clicks.

Concursive continues to use Java Portlets in their products because portlets are a standardized platform for proven flexibility and scalability.