PHP contact manager: who's got a favorite?

[Greg Rundlett]

There are no less than 295 projects on FreshMeat under the category of
"groupware" http://freshmeat.net/browse/917/ Of course that's because
'groupware' is ill-defined.

Some mean 'collaboration', like a wiki, some mean 'communication' like
calendaring and email, some mean Customer Relationship Management (CRM) like
SugarCRM, some mean full-blown Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) like
Compiere.

One opensource project I've heard good things about is one of the
largest/most popular called 'Compiere'. It is a full ERP/CRM solution.
Unfortunately, unless I'm reading things wrong, the full client is windows
only, and they currently only support an Oracle backend. This solution is
way more than a micro (<10 employees) company will need. And, it is written
in Java, not PHP. This is not something you would switch to if you're
currently using spreadsheets to track something. I only mention it because
it deserves visibility in the opensource consulting / solutions area.

SugarCRM is another project that I've seen or heard good things about. I
believe it tries to focus squarely on the CRM (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Relationship_Management) part of the
equation, and I want to explore it more, so if you find that this is a good
solution for you, I'd love to hear more about how/why/experiences.

Another one I found is "Open For Business" http://www.ofbiz.org/, which is
also a J2EE application focused on ERP/CRM

Wikipedia offers this list of CRM projects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CRM_vendors, plus info on ERP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning if you want to
brush up on your consultant-speak.

And, there are also the collection of applications that focus more on the
email/calendaring aspects of 'groupware' -- trying to unseat Microsoft
Exchange server, and I don't think that you're looking for one of these.

The ultimate answer depends on what problem you're trying to solve. What
size company is this? What type of operation do they have? What process and
tools are they using now, and what problems does it solve for them? What
problems does it create? OK, now we know what solution might fit.
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