What is Cloud CRM?
For me, the Cloud is the online services provided by so many companies over the web. Cloud CRM is basically the application of Cloud computing to CRM. Many companies have adopted the cloud metaphor such as Microsoft, Netsuite, Salesforce, Sugar CRM and Salesboom. As the Cloud flies high in the business sky, more business vendors started depending upon it in running their sales, marketing, inventory, contract management, etc…
The best thing about Cloud CRM is that costs so much less than on-premises CRM. Another good thing about having your business in the Cloud is the integration flexibility through API. Managing your business with Cloud CRM software has never been easier as you can also log into your data from anywhere around the globe. But the main issue with it is that your data and contacts are stored off premises and this leads us to our next point in my article which is security issues and how they are handled by Cloud CRM providers.
The most controversial and pressing issue with Cloud computing is the security worries, especially in the Cloud CRM sphere. Many companies that depend on Cloud CRM in running their business expressed their dissatisfaction about Cloud computing and the security methods presented by Cloud CRM companies that host their business data and contacts data. These worries are at the rise especially after the notorious incident of November 2007, when a successful phishing attack compromised contact information on a number of salesforce.com customers, which was then used to send highly-targeted phishing emails to salesforce.com users. In 2009 Salesforce.com service has suffered some downtime; during an outage in January services were unavailable for at least 40 minutes, affecting thousands of businesses.
Surprisingly, other smaller Cloud CRM software companies offer more guarantees for hosted data than Salesforce. For instance, in sections 8 and 9 in Salesboom’s Service Level Agreement (SLA), the company warrants the continuity of the services and data ownership. On the other hand, companies like salesforce only depend on their name in the market and offer no warranty or security but that of their name.
Cloud CRM Reviews | CRM NUTCASE 
I was introduced to the cloud in general and a cloud CRM when me and 4 other students in Virginia Tech started working on a school project. It seems to us as it seems to pretty much everybody in the computing industry that cloud based systems is on it’s fast track to overtake the legacy ones.
I Would appreciate it if somebody can provide me with a list of the markets top cloud CRM providers and hopefully their market share.
I’m working for a medium size hybrid book store. 60 % of our clients order our books online the rest are walk ins. so far we are using 2 completely different systems that do not interact at all.
I know very little about cloud CRM but i’m gaining knowledge as I have started the journey to decide what system to purchase.
I did setup trial accounts with salesforce, salesboom and sugar CRM.
Salesforce: they gave me a call 6 am pacific time, they woke me up asked a load of questions, most of them was to give them an idea how much money they can squeeze out of me.
Salesboom: they called to book a demo with their senior CRM consultant, But they did that without asking me any business needs questions.
Sugar CRM: they completely ignored my interest !