Cloud is a better option for mid-market users than SaaS, according to Sage UK as it announced the UK launch of SalesLogix Cloud, a pay-per-user CRM service hosted on Amazon's EC2 platform.
Sage product manager Duncan Woods said that a key difference was that where Sage's existing SaaS offerings are in effect slices of a single common system, each instance of SalesLogix Cloud would be private to that customer and could therefore be customised, upgraded or adapted as needed.
"Going to the cloud enables us to offer all the benefits of an on-premise solution, but have it hosted remotely," he said. "We are finding that the mid-market wants more flexibility, scalability and control than SaaS allows."
Sage said that the cloud version of SalesLogix would also make the system which manages customer interactions and information, and provides insights into business performance more widely accessible, for example in the field. The service provides 100GB of data storage for every 50 users as standard, the company added.
Woods said that Sage's SData web service for data sharing would also make it possible to build hybrid deployments that integrate on-premise systems with the cloud service.
He added that as well as answering customer needs, going to the cloud is also bringing benefits to Sage.
For example, the Amazon platform has made it easier to deploy SalesLogix Cloud for new customers, and he said that the cloud approach has the potential to ease the task of providing 24x7 support.
