A Silicon Valley technology company that makes software for analyzing customer buying patterns has picked Durham as its second U.S. office.
SugarCRM, based in Cupertino, opened the office on Emperor Boulevard about five weeks ago. It employs 12 in sales and engineering here, but it expects to double the staff in the coming months.
The company said in a statement it wanted to be closer to clients and resellers in the Eastern half of the United States, where it works with more than 60 "channel partners" to sell and support its products.
SugarCRM, founded in 2004, employs more than 200 people, mostly in the San Francisco Bay area. Outside its two U.S. offices, the company has foreign offices in Munich, Paris, Cambridge, Sydney and Minsk.
The company's customers include Avis, Coca-Cola and General Motors. Its product, known as Customer Relationship Management, creates databases of customers, documenting their orders and preferences by location and other demographic categories.
John Murawski has been a full-time newspaper reporter since 1991, with stints at Legal Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy (both in Washington, DC), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Palm Beach Post (in South Florida) before arriving at the N&O in December 2004. At the N&O he covers energy (nuclear, coal, renewable, efficiency), utilities (electric, natural gas, telephone) and telecommunications. His beat includes such publicly traded companies as Progress Energy, Duke Energy, PSNC Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, PowerSecure International, Tekelec, Cisco Systems, AT&T, among others. You can reach him at 919-829-8932 or 
