Concursive, a Virginia-based open source outfit backed by Intel Capital, is offering its on-demand CRM solution free for a year to companies for up to 100 users. It says its ConcourseSuite 5.0 product provides SMEs with a fully customizable front office solution.

After 12 months, Concursive says businesses will be able to continue using the stuff at prices that are “on the order of half of the rates of competing on-demand CRM offerings.”

Since November, businesses have been able to sign up for a free five-user ConcourseSuite 5.0 account. The company says nearly 1,000 firms started using ConcourseSuite 5.0 under that offer, and predicts the response to the new 100-user offer will be greater.

The widgetry, which would compete with Salesforce.com and NetSuite, combines customer relationship management, online presence management, marketing, team collaboration and customer service in a single platform.

The tools in the suite let SMBs track prospects and sales activity, generate new leads, manage the sales process and service existing customers.

Since it’s software-as-a-service, ConcourseSuite 5.0 requires no setup. Business users simply subscribe and then login to begin using the system. The software is supposed to be user-friendly and designed so users can customize the application and add functionality to meet specific requirements.

Concursive developed two enterprise-class open source business productivity applications, ConcourseSuite, which used to be called Centric CRM, and Team Elements, a team collaboration and community management suite.

Both are Java/J2EE-based web applications that run on virtually any standard platform either proprietary or open source.

The company says they have been in continuous development for almost seven years, share identical architectures, and are fully integrated.

ConcourseSuite includes all common CRM modules and adds web site authoring, integrated web content management, document management, customer surveys and advanced help desk functions.

Concursive says its products are used by Fortune 500 companies in large configurations.