Anteil Open Source CRM Software Review

Anteil CRM

 

Based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Anteil began as a relationship between VA Linux Systems and its key consultants. From a meeting in October 1999, VA Linux and Jim Capp discussed the vision and design for a comprehensive CRM software suite which would include sales analytics, opportunity tracking and forecasting. Capp launched the company, Anteil, and VA Linux remains a strategic partner and customer.

 

Anteil was designed to assist customers in better identifying, attracting, retaining, servicing and supporting customers. Primary application features include:

• Account entity objects for account management
• Contact manager for contact management
• Opportunity manager
• Campaign manager
• Event manager
• Consolidated marketing materials
• Corporate communications
• Calendars for activity management
• Sales forecasting
• Advanced security

Anteil supports the following vertical markets and industries:

• Construction
• Education
• Fashion industry
• Financial services
• Government and public sector
• Manufacturing (primarily discrete manufacturing)
• Medical and healthcare
• Not for profits and associations
• Publishing and media
• Real estate

Developed on a native Web architecture, this open-source CRM software solution is available at no cost and provides an easy way to implement a basic CRM application quickly. The product architecture is well constructed with a presentation layer, business logic layer and modular database interface layer. The presentation layer is XHTML/HTML/XML and uses JavaScript for form validation, navigation and browser independence. The business logic was developed primarily in PHP. A Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are available for C/C++, PHP and the UNIX programming environments. The server platform uses the traditional Linux operating system and Apache Web Server.

 

At the data layer, Anteil supports MySQL and PostgreSQL. The object oriented and relational structure is insulated from the database storage through an abstraction layer. This segregation permits the flexibility to use multiple relational database management systems with a common code base. The abstraction layer also delivers near-instantaneous transaction level data replication to multiple servers distributed in a wide area network (WAN) or in a local cluster of servers.

 

The open-source CRM software foundation is a suite of database tables architected to capture relationship objects and data. The object-oriented methodology applied to table design has achieved in a relatively small set of common objects such as entities, people, opportunities and events. The downloaded solution is delivered with reasonable code documentation and a tutorial.

 

Bottom line product strengths include its overall simplicity, ease of use, intuitive navigation, logical code construction and relative straight-forwardness in modifying the CRM system.