With the latest news of Salesforce and their 9.6 million profits in their first quarter out of a total of 247.6 million in sales in the quarter goes to show the amount of money the giant of the Online CRM Software industry has to spend on marketing. I will admit I am a fan of underdogs in many situations and the Web Based CRM industry is no exception. I like to see many CRM vendors do well because it will create a more competitive market and keep a single company from obtaining a monopoly. With more competitors battling with roughly the same market share the end user and small businesses are sure to benefit from lower costs and better service.
Unfortunately it is sometimes the case that when a company grows into a position where they control the market they can neglect their current clients and provide less then optimal customer support since there is not much fear of a client going elsewhere. The same scenario plays into the pricing of software and services or software as a service, prices can be raised because it is almost certain that businesses will pay the higher price if the marketing of a company controls the means people use to research other possibilities. There are many Web Based CRM Software vendors out there who offer small, medium and large businesses a great solution for their CRM needs. These vendors are companies like Netsuite, Salesboom.com or Oncontact; there are many more out there you just need to dig through the marketing of the large firms to find the other great CRM solutions.
