Think about it, we have our data, our applications and our infrastructures in the cloud – why would be need anything but a thin client laptop and a browser? (After all, isn’t this what the hype around Apple’s tablet/netbook is pointing towards?).

Esteban had an interesting response – essentially pointing out that with RESTful web services – the desktop can become the browser, and thus application development is all about total desktop mashups. Developers need not write to support IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc. – just keep the APIs simple and open. So, Esteban went in another, very profound direction here.

An interesting post I read today at Mashable posits four (really three if you split hairs) identifying trends of the web of the future: ubiquity (from both an access point and device front), a rich media focus, and social networks owning the web.

I think if we look at this more realistic near-term prediction (Esteban’s makes more sense from an interoperability standpoint – but in my opinion too many players on the apps, web and OS level stand to lose control and dollars, so I think roadblocks would be thrown up at Esteban’s vision at every turn.) and place it next to the evolution of CRM, some interesting things pop up.

First, both the Web and CRM are becoming more media-rich and more social. Greater mobile access, embedded Youtube videos in home screens, myPortal dashlets exposing external content, and social media integration – and I’m just talking about what SugarCRM alone has done in the last couple years – clearly mimics these trends.

But what is the next stage? Does the “ubiquity” concept merge with CRM data access (and social/media saturation) to involve a new look to CRM? One that is less about logging in to a browser screen and more about accessing data and automating processes in a more seamless, natural manner?

Perhaps both the Mashable article and Esteban are correct. While “the web” is evolving – that does not mean the way we think about accessing the web – the browser – has to follow along. The web-based interactivity of social features like iPhone games, has proven that the web has – and will – deliver a lot of data, applications and value in general without the involvement of a traditional browser.

Looking over the results – it is clear that ERP and E-Commerce are the main areas where people see the benefits of an integrated approach to their business processes. Both ERP and e-commerce took 32% of the votes each.

I am inclined to agree with the poll respondents. SugarCRM’s partners have been doing a lot of great stuff around linking Sugar with both e-commerce tools, as well as great ERP solutions such as Compiere. I’ll have some more info on this exact topic to share soon.

Other systems included in the poll were content management systems (CMS) – which received 20% of the votes, and project management which grabbed eight percent of the votes.

There were some write-in candidates, so to speak. The clear winner was “email.” And I guess it was my bad for not including email/Outlook as an option. My defense: I think most of us old salts in the CRM world simply assume any valid CRM tool will work with your email system.

Google Sites was also brought up as a potential integration point with a CRM system. This tells me that while we have not really seen critical mass around the Google Docs and other offerings, it is on the minds of a lot of people – and could be an interesting area of innovation in the CRM world soon.

The most interesting item not mentioned?  Social media. Surprised (or maybe not) that no one thought these tools should be integrated into CRM.

Thanks again for participating, and I’ll have a new poll up shortly.

It reeks of the lame lock-in strategies that companies like Salesforce.com employed early on in the SaaS game: once you put your CRM data on our servers…we got you.  Good luck accessing it when you leave (or in some instances like for data backup and cross-departmental reporting – ever) .

None of this is new, of course. From cell phone platforms, to IM clients, to applications – the development usually starts in silos, and thus creates problems when users try to do things that span across networks. We have seen these types of issues: I can’t send a video message to someone not on Verizon; I can’t IM with someone on Yahoo! IM when I’m on AIM; I can’t tweet from Facebook etc.  – all solved by open standards that usually come after the initial development of the functionality.

Google is acting in retrograde here. Instead of offering a quality experience and the ability to – say – keep your stuff in Orkut but have it appear more freely in other sites like Facebook, it is damaging the openness that the social web promises. Google should realize that ultimately – it is not important to Google where the individuals live online – since Google has a huge opportunity to work with every platform to expand its ad-driven revenue empire.

One thing I instantly thought about is how well the Sugar platform is poised to meld this type of technology. Yeah, I know, would I honestly blog about this if Sugar was NOT a good fit?

But seriously, the dashlet style interface of the Sugar home screens, as well as the simple ability to add i-frames from ANY web property inside the subpanel displays and other areas of the core modules in Sugar makes Wave an interesting candidate for some next-level mashup ideas.

Colin mentioned customer service…and to give a specific example. The Wave UI could easily be embedded in the Cases module in Sugar – allowing a customer support agent to aggregate support tickets and answer them as interactive, multi-party chats. So, instead of emailing back and forth on a one-to-one basis with customers needing help – an agent can multiply their efforts. And the data in these Wave conversations could easily be cut and pasted in Sugar’s KnowledgeBase tool.

Sales? Well, the Wave tool embedded in the Opportunities module could enable a sales rep to talk to multiple people at an Account or Prospect firm, without congesting the system with a lot of extra contact details for individuals who are part of the sales process, but not material to the Account record. Also, by engaging right inside the Sugar system, pertinent sales information like product catalog, pricing and purchase history data could easily be pulled into the Wave engagement.

Marketing is a no-brainer. The aggregation of social outreach – or social CRM as it is becoming known – could happen right in the Sugar system. Wave could help marketers better respond with personalized, or micro-targeting communications to the communities they create through social media and other suites like Twitter, all tracked and managed through Wave and embedded in the Sugar system.

We have a lot of really inventive engineers here at Sugar. I was just looking over some really cool UI ideas from one of our longer tenured engineers Majed Itani – and my mind reels when I think o all the cool stuff someone with his Sugar expertise could do with a tool like Wave embedded into the UI and process functionality of Sugar.

With Google Wave, the idea is to provide a user with a Web 2.0 collaboration platform where users can collaborate via email, IM, photos, documentation, files, etc., in real time, edit that content, and track those interactions across a single “wave.”

From a business/CRM perspective, I could see how Google Wave could change the way businesses interact in big ways. In terms of collaboration, the platform could have a big impact on how employees communicate and interact with each other, lending to the model of dispersed employees and home-based call center agents.

From a customer service perspective, the options and benefits are nearly limitless, as the idea of tracking multiple Web 2.0 communications and interactions across a single “wave” really gets to the heart of what social CRM is all about. For example, a customer in need of support could use Wave to start a dialogue with an automated support system, which can auto populate contact and account information back into a CRM system. If the service interaction requires escalation to a live rep, the customer can request a CSR, who joins the interaction and has streaming video, documentation, IM, unified communications and a host of other tools at their disposal to resolve the issue.

The fact that Google Wave is open source certainly helps from a developers standpoint, and I think the idea of Wave as a platform on which users can extend into specific applications is the grander idea. From a business perspective, it certainly bodes well. In addition, I’ve heard rumors that Google is mulling the prospect of a “wave extension store,” according to an official blog post, through which applications could conceivably be sold.

That said, Wave is clearly a work in progress, and certainly not ready for enterprise primetime. But as is always the case with Google, it will be interesting to see how the proverbial 800-pound gorilla throws its weight around and influences the manner in which businesses operate and interact with their consumers. When it comes down to it, and just like a CRM system, whether Google Wave is a big hit or falls flat on its face will come down to the user interface and end-user adoption.

But enough talking on my end. Here’s a quick look at some of the top features Google is currently embedding in Wave:

I like the fact that Google has made an interesting move to aggregate and rank content around word-of-mouth and user-generated reviews around web pages. But, does a Yelp!-like feature for every single web page in the world really help?

I mean, sure we want to refer to like-minded people with reviews and advice around travel, electronic devices, etc. – but do we really need to be reading what people think about a web site itself?

I am sure there will be some confusion and noise stacked in SideWiki blurring the line between a web site and the content or products/services offered. This can make a marketers’ job a living hell.

Think about it – if you are getting barraged with comments – probably mostly in the negative – about your site AND your offerings in the social web, how can you prioritize?

The “analysis paralysis” concept (having too much data to decide which to move on first) existed even before this explosion of web 2.0 content. For some, this may prove too much. We can only be so nimble when it comes to catering our offerings to the most fickle of consumers.

I realize Google will throw a lot of these comments into an algorithm to determine which ones are relevant and rank them accordingly, but still, what seems like a cool tool in theory might simply be overwhelming. Could have simply been easier for Google to acquire or strike up a deal with Yelp! to add a relevant sidebar to certain sites, not all of the web.

I am not so sure.

What I mean is that Google could enter the CRM market in at least two distinct ways. One, on the very low end of the CRM spectrum, its Outlook integration tools are very similar to base CRM capabilities. In the old contact management world, all that was missing was strong email integration. With that, Google has the basics in place.

Secondly, as a cloud provider, Google could partner with the right application providers to deliver CRM functionality – either simple or complex permutations – to end user organizations. Google could also open up its huge cloud infrastructure and have companies store apps they’ve licensed from other CRM providers on their own Google server account. So, while Google is not building any full-fledged applications, this is not to say it has no plans to get in the game in some other way.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

A week ago, Google announced Wave, which its intending to create an open ecosystem for communication and collaboration across Web 2.0 mediums. The fact remains that the next generation is making demands for computing in the workplace to be on par with the sophisticated computing they have in their homes. The manner in which companies will interact with customers is no exception to this revolution.

That said, there still seems to be a significant gap in the current state of Web-based communications and enterprise 2.0 apps. As a result I think you’ll continue to see Web 2.0 mashups such as these be driven by the platforms such as Google in an effort to fill those holes.

The concept of cloud-based productivity and collaboration suites is starting to takeoff, and in many cases, are assisting CRM initiatives, and in the process, allowing office productivity applications to become CRM apps, granted your CRM provider provides the framework and openness to do so.

At over an hour long, this video is a little too all-encompassing, but feel free to scroll through for what I think gives a great glimpse into what we can expect to see within the immediate future, not just in terms of enterprise collaboration, but also in terms of CRM. Whether Google will continue to play an important role in that development, only time will time.

Whether you’re relying on Amazon’s EC2 platform or Google, the very idea that a developer is relying solely or exclusively on a provider doesn’t remove the need for some degree of operation by the end user. In a cloud environment, that will include managing the end-user experience and supporting the continued development and customization of the application moving forward.

To that end, that’s why I think it’s so important we continue to see more and more initiatives such as the Open Cloud Manifesto. Cloud computing is going to change the way in which developers interact with software vendors, and more specifically, change their roles from that of simply developing to that of operating and management as well.

The question everyone must be asking – “Is this good or bad for the micro-blogging concept?”

I personally feel it is a good thing. I mean, with such a larger, stable owner – coupled with grater infrastructure to support the scale of user growth – Twitter can be free to expand its user-base, and stay, well, free to users.

The talk around paid business accounts and other tools underscores Twitter’s issues – mainly that it has very little resources to support its growth. With non cloud-based open or free software rapid growth is the opposite of a problem. But when 100% of your users are stressing your servers, it can become a killer issue, fast.

Google could provide bandwidth and the smarts to commercialize Twitter in a non-invasive way. Look, people love to use the Google core products and I haven’t heard anyone complain about the ads. Also, with GPS tools, a console (like Tweetdeck that isn’t a RAM hog) all powering relevant ads – twitter could actually be a huge winner for Google.

I also think Google did the right thing in keeping YouTube a distinct brand, and should do the same with Twitter. While there is a lot of interesting capabilities I could envision – such as embedding Tweet capabilities into a Gmail UI – I think Twitter is doing just fine on its own.

It will be interesting to see how all of the Twitter extensions and add-on apps would fare if Google took over…