Some Contacts are not Accounts...

Have you guys considered implementing a way to have contacts that are not "Accounts"?

It would be great if we could have contacts that were linked by company, but could be separate from Accounts. Maybe it would make sense to add a "Companies" tab that would differentiate between contacts that were par of a company and contacts that are active customers.

Anyone else have feedback on how this might best be accomplished? We are in the professional services business and half of my contacts are my competition, which I need because we work with them a lot, but they are not clients.

Thanks.