Open-source CRM continues to grow in popularity, and visibility, in large part to the reported success of Cupertino, Calif.-based SugarCRM, now disclosing that it supports 400,000 users on 50,000 installations in worldwide. Noting the growing trend, CRM magazine introduced the market as one of our Market Leader categories in this year’s Market Awards.

SugarCRM took the winner’s position, but not without intense competition from companies including Adempiere, Compiere, Concursive, vTiger, and xTuple.

The open-source pioneer just announced yesterday the general availability of Sugar 5.1, touting new capabilities in analytics, reporting, and wireless. At the company’s CRM Acceleration event last Thursday at The Westin New York, in the heart of Times Square, SugarCRM Senior Manager of Product Management Jennifer Yim gave a glimpse into the release update, as well as a look at the future roadmap through (tentatively) June 2009.

Speaking first about Sugar 5.1, Yim said “the focus is on deep CRM, and the analytics of the information in our system.” This is evident in the revamped reporting aspects, affectionately referred to as “Reports 2.0″–very Web 2.0-eriffic. Anyway, the new reporting capabilities include:

• user interface improvements;
• a report wizard that enables users to create various reports depending on business need;
• an ability to create more complex queries and filters by using the “and/or” rule;
• runtime filters; and
• grouping by matrix.

Sugar Wireless 2.0 is also compelling. In this updated functionality, SugarCRM Professional and Enterprise edition users can have browser-based, real-time access to their CRM on BlackBerry and iPhone devices. For these users, no separate installation is needed, according to Yim. She also insisted that mobile users will have the same functionality on their phones that they would using SugarCRM on desktops, including view, search, edit, and accessing any necessary records.

While this capability is browser-based, and not native to the actual phone like Research In Motion’s plans with SAP, its clear the next move in CRM is in the world of smartphones and being able to access CRM software anywhere, anytime, as fellow CRMer Lauren McKay pointed out a few days ago.

To conclude, Yim gave a quick look at plans for Versions 5.5 and 6.0, with tentative dates set for December 2008 and June 2009, respectively. That could especially change, given that last year when Sugar 5.0 hit the mainstream, the plan was to come out with 5.1 in December 2007 and 5.5 “in mid-year 2008″.

Yim stressed the roadmap could change, but still explained that release 5.5 will focus on enterprises, while 6.0 will delve even deeper into CRM.

Possible new features for 5.5 include:

• complex teams groups;
• sales territory management;
• social networking mashups; and
• platform enhancements that include full text search, calculated fields, and dependent drop downs.

Possible features for 6.0:

• calendar 2.0;
• Sugar wireless advanced mobility;
• advanced workflow;
• advanced studio and module builder;
• partner relationship management;
• extensibility platform; and
• Sugar Web services.

Keep a close eye on SugarCRM and its roadmap as other competitors continue to evolve and innovate in their own right and fight for supremacy on the open-source seas.