CRM helps in many ways in the corporate world. Some of the common areas that it benefits are business management, data analysis, targeted marketing, customer tracking and sale tracking.

They are REST API, SOAP API, Bulk API, and Streaming API. Together they make up the Salesforce data APIs. Their purpose is to let you manipulate your Salesforce data, whereas other APIs let you do things like customize page layouts or build custom development tools.

The top picks are Salesforce, Insightly and Zoho CRM. Those that made it to the short list include Infusionsoft, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics, Nutshell, NetSuite, Act!, TeamWox and Highrise.