Mission Research, a vendor of contact management solutions for the nonprofit sector, has launched a product today at DEMO aimed at the SOHO market. The product is called SalesWorks and is similar to Salesforce.com, in that it’s used to manage contacts or sales leads. In fact it’s being billed as “a Salesforce.com for the SOHO market”, but without the cost or complicated features.
The people who founded Mission Research have a successful Dot Com sale behind them already – Charlie Crystle and team sold Chili!Soft for $70 million in 2000 to Cobalt Networks (which was subsequently acquired by Sun Microsystems). Perhaps that success is the reason why their current venture is focused on being “socially responsible”. For example, last year they donated over $1 million of software to nonprofits. In terms of their software approach, Mission Research aims to produce a combination of desktop and Web tools – an approach they’ve named “The Hybrid Web”. They want to achieve “the power and safety of desktop applications integrated smartly and safely with web-based functionality.”
Mission Research’s feature product is called GiftWorks, used for fundraising. But the product they’re launching at DEMO today is called SalesWorks. Some of its defining features include a dekstop app; integration with web services such as mapping, eCommerce, back-up/restore, e-marketing mailings; and a user friendly interface.
The cost is either free or $100 upward, but it’s not clear how the cost structure works yet. In any case SalesWorks may well find a niche for businesses who don’t want to give up the relative stability and security of a desktop app for contact management, but also want to take advantage of the Web. While Salesforce is a purely browser-based service, SalesWorks is betting on its low cost and desktop app rich interface as ways to differentiate itself.
Here are some screenshots:
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)