SalesLogix Gets Rebranded

SalesLogix customers will now have a couple of new words in their official product name as the SalesLogix parent company, Sage Group, rebrands its CRM software line. This rebranding is part of a global CRM initiative by Sage, which is trying to promote its breadth of product line in the CRM arena for small and medium sized businesses. And don’t forget that the Best Software name has gone away, being replaced with Sage. Best Software was the North American division of Sage, which is headquartered in the UK.

Here’s a run-down of the names to help keep everything straight:

• Sage CRM Solutions is the name of the entire family of CRM products. The tag line is “Freedom of Choice”.
• ACT! By Sage is the new name for ACT!, the leading contact management software for small businesses and individuals.
• Sage CRM and SageCRM.com come from the CRM module of the AccPac accounting system, which Sage purchased a couple of years ago. The .com version is “on-demand”, or hosted, software. The regular Sage CRM is the on-premise version of it. It is based on a web architecture.
• Sage CRM SalesLogix is the popular SalesLogix software that has been the core of the Sage CRM line.

Although I’m not wild about the extra length of the SalesLogix product name now, it does make a certain amount of sense to brand the products in this manner. People could be familiar with each of these products and never know the same company made all of them.

So now that the names have something in common, how about the software itself? ACT! has had and always will have its place as the premier contact management software, but Sage CRM and SalesLogix both compete for the same size of customer and do roughly the same things. I don’t know what integration between the two could be done, given the difference in underlying architecture, but for the moment they both fit different customer needs. SageCRM.com would be the offer for a hosted solution, competing with products like Salesforce.com. Sage CRM SalesLogix would be the solution for people wanting highly customizable on-premise software, competing with products like Pivotal.

Sage seems to have their bases covered with CRM and is making it easier for new prospects to understand the product line. Can’t say the same for their accounting software line (the tag line could be “way too much freedom of choice”), but that’s another story.