ACT system gets Microsoft-centric facelift for the corporate IT arena
by Tony Baer, senior contributing editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 11/1/2004 7:00:00 AM
Best Software has released a new version of ACT, its popular single-user contact management program, to support small teams and workgroups. The upgrade has a new architecture built around the Microsoft SQL Server database, using Microsoft .NET technology.
With the new relational database support, ACT 2005 can store more contact records, track contacts by company, and provide different levels of access across teams and workgroups. Other improvements are found in these areas:
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better integration with Microsoft Office, allowing direct export of contact lists to Excel spreadsheets, and events or appointments to the Outlook calendar;
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the ability to generate sales quotes without re-entering customer or product data;
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capabilities for tracking contacts who work for the same company; and
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collaborative capabilities that overlap with groupware functions provided by Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino, such as the ability to check team member availability, sending meeting invitations, and scheduling resources.
According to Doug Meyer, president of Best Software, the program was rewritten to make it more acceptable to corporate IT organizations. "Now you'll have technology that will meet your corporate standards," says Meyer.
Besides multi-user capabilities, the most significant feature of the 2005 release is the ability to generate quotes. Aiming at small and midsize businesses, the package will be integrated with the MAS 90 accounting program. Despite the broader functionality, Best does not intend to grow ACT into a full-blown CRM system, and currently has no plans to integrate with any third-party CRM offerings (the parent company owns two CRM offerings, including ACCPAC and SalesLogix).
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