John Roberts, who cofounded the company in 2004 with Clint Oram and Jacob Taylor, will be replaced on an interim basis by Larry Augustin, a board member and former CEO of Linux systems vendor VA Linux. The company did not give a reason for Roberts' departure, except to say that he was pursuing other opportunities.

SugarCRM makes software that sales and service departments can use to keep track of current and prospective customers. The company boasts more than 5,000 customers, who can either host the SugarCRM software themselves or buy it as a service from one of the company's partners. SugarCRM competes with industry giants Microsoft and Salesforce.com.

In a , Augustin said he had taken over as interim CEO, effective Wednesday, while the company searches for a permanent chief executive.

"I have an immense amount of respect for the founding CEO, John Roberts," Augustin wrote. " Few people have taken a company from concept to major growth the way John did at Sugar."