OpenXchange (Open-Xchange.com), which is a “open source collaboration” software provider, announced a new partnership with SugarCRM. Open-Xchange and SugarCRM will integrate data from their collaboration software. The new integration will allow users to aggregate their data from various social media websites (like Facebook, Xing, and LinkedIn) along with the SugarCRM application, then store it in an Open-Xchange address book or share it with others.

Juergen Geck, Chief Technical Officer of Open-Xchange, said:

“SugarCRM is the first software to build on the social networking capabilities in Open-Xchange, which opens the potential for a whole new class of integrated solutions. Social Open-Xchange in combination with SugarCRM will create an ecosystem of data that spans many social networks and software programs.”

The information will be formatted for smooth integration with the SugarCRM application. The SugarCRM data, which is importable to Open-Xchange, can be accessed via smartphone or published directly to the internet. All of this is critical for what SugarCRM delivers. In a nutshell, “Customer relationship management” (CRM) with social media involves monitoring what’s being said about a company on Twitter. Salesforce made an entry into the social media market, specifically “social CRM “, but didn’t allow for prioritizing the more important twitter users (accounts with more profiles) who may be commenting on a company. The industry is in dire need of this, especially when there is a lot being said about a company.

Clint Oram, vice president of products and co-founder of SugarCRM, mentioned:

“We see incredible potential for data integration, for Social CRM. The focus of the IT industry is moving towards how data can be shared among users to increase knowledge among groups of people. We believe pooling previously disparate islands of information can deliver additional value to our users.”

Currently, Open-Xchange operates on a Micro Format (microformats.org). The Open-Xchange Micro Format allows for the convenient importation and exporting of data from social networks to SaaS or hosted systems. The new combination “SugarOXMF” is available at www.sugarforge.org/projects/sugaroxmf and the testing server for Open-Xchange is http://ox.io