[Hidden-tech] hosted service for Contacts Management

[Jonathan Dill]

Hi folks,

I have started a thread in the forums if you want to get involved in 
this discussion:

http://members.hidden-tech.net/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=43

I am interested in the idea of setting up a hosted service for Contacts 
Management that would duplicate the functions of something like ACT! or 
Microsoft Exchange.  This would be web-based, based on Linux / Open 
Source, able to sync with Thunderbird and PDAs, possibly with LDAP 
integration for address book.  Maybe it would be based on Open Groupware 
(OGO) or something similar that is already out there and in development.

At this point, this is speculation--I want to get an idea of what is 
involved, and hopefully set up an "alpha" development server to play 
around with some software and get an idea of what would be involved in 
developing this type of service.  I want to find out if there are people 
already out there doing something like this, how much they charge, get a 
sense of the potential competition.

The background is that in my new job as a consultant, I am dealing with 
several businesses who have a potential demand for this type of 
service.  For the most part, they are currently using ACT! but running 
into various problems and shortcomings.  A typical example is a home 
care business with about 15,000 contacts in about 600 groups--each 
"group" is a "patient" with nurses, family members, doctors, lawyers, 
and so forth, with appointments and case notes associated.  HIPPA is 
obviously going to be a concern for that type of business, but I don't 
know if HIPPA compliance  is going to be too much of a barrier to 
setting up this type of service, that is also part of the speculation 
and investigation.

Best,
Jonathan