SugarCRM has sprinkled its customer relationship management (CRM) software over the IBM LotusLive collaboration suite in a bid to sweeten the collaboration tool integrations that the two companies jointly go to market with. This announcement is the first in a series of offerings that follow SugarCRM joining the IBM Global Alliance Portfolio as a cloud solutions provider.

"The integration of LotusLive capabilities with SugarCRM provides a powerful set of tools for all of our users," said Larry Augustin, chief executive officer of SugarCRM. "Now, sales and support professionals can connect directly with prospects and customers in an instant, helping to provide higher service levels and shorter sales cycles."

SugarCRM will demonstrate the integration with LotusLive from its booth at Lotusphere 2011, which starts today at the Walt Disney World Swan Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Since LotusLive and Sugar are cloud-based solutions, no software installation is required. The LotusLive integration with Sugar is intended to provide sales, marketing and customer support professionals with an integrated user experience when using LotusLive File Sharing and Online Meetings from within the Sugar application.

Suggesting that the integration between LotusLive and SugarCRM is a "no-brainer," Clint Oram, cofounder and CTO at SugarCRM has said that everyone working with customers today can benefit from simple, intuitive web-based tools to better connect and share information. Oram also specifies that the new integration will enable web and audio meetings directly from the Sugar user interface — additionally, it will also allow the user to attach notes and documents to a Sugar record, and share them with customers via LotusLive.