"Etelos, launched in pre-bubble 1999 as a CRM services outfit, has remade itself as a Web 2.0 company with the help of open source software. Today, Etelos offers hosted CRM applications that weave into Google apps, Windows Live, and even iPods. Leaving Microsoft behind, and all the licensing restrictions that came with it, made all the difference, says CTO and founder Danny Kolke.
"In May 1999 Kolke started Etelos with a vision to provide an entire suite of Web applications for salespeople. Etelos started life as a Microsoft shop, but it didn't take long before Kolke realized that fulfilling his vision was going to take an infrastructure that would allow scalability at a lower cost than was possible with the .Net platform that Etelos was based on..."
