Software SnapShot

ACT! 2005

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About the company:

In 1975, two neighbors—Pat Sullivan and Mike Muhney—got together and did what successful salespeople do:  compared notes.  As “power” Day-Timer users, they were successfully tracking their commitments to clients.  They were building high-level corporate relationships and managing them effectively.  They were doing everything right.

But, as the years passed, they wanted to do more.  After all, doing more meant selling more.  But with little or no administrative assistance—one of the “occupational hazards” of salespeople—their hands were tied.   

They didn’t stop there, however.  Sullivan and Muhney firmly believed that with the right tools, they could sell more.  And, with desktop PCs coming into fashion, they believed there was a “computerized” way to be more productive.  But none of the “productivity” packages they tried measured up to their paper-based systems. 

Eventually, they formed a company called Conductor Software and adapted Lotus Symphony into their own quote and proposal manager.  The predecessor to the present-day configurator, Quote Pro was only mildly successful.  So with little of their initial investment remaining, Sullivan and Muhney quickly introduced Sales Conductor—and bombed. 

With no money and two failed products, Sullivan and Muhney were at a crossroads.  Then, a long, arduous meeting on July 4, 1986 sealed their fates.  Contact Software International was born and just nine months later, ACT! 1.0 stormed the marketplace.  As Muhney later said, “it took six years to become an overnight success.”

Contact Software International was a genuine pioneer in the contact management software industry.  But in 1993, after successfully building ACT! into one the most popular business software, Contact Software was acquired by Symantec Corporation.

Sullivan went on to found SalesLogix Corporation—a company devoted to performance-boosting sales automation solutions for sales managers and salespeople—in January 1996.  In just three years, the product not only dominated the mid-market, but it evolved from a high-end contact manager into a fully-integrated customer relationship management suite offering sales, marketing, support, and e-business solutions.

Then, on December 6, 1999, SalesLogix Corporation announced a new venture:  it re-acquired ACT! and launched Interact.com—the only online service that integrates sales-related Internet services right into the applications that salespeople use most. 

To reflect the new, multi-brand offering, the company changed its name to Interact Commerce Corporation on April 26, 2000.  “Our new name reflects this expansion in our vision to reach a broader marketplace with relationship management and selling solutions, helping us communicate that we are providing companies with exactly the products that help them meet their individual business needs,” Sullivan said.

Today, Interact Commerce Corporation continues a tradition begun with Sullivan and Muhney—that of truly understanding salespeople.  It’s what made ACT! successful.  It’s what made SalesLogix successful.  Designed with salespeople in mind, Interact Commerce solutions pave the way for interactive selling.

Interact Commerce Corporation is the leading provider of relationship management software for mid-market companies and small-office/home-office businesses. We’re known for building products that are easy to use, quick to deploy, and provide anytime, anywhere access to critical information. Our products include SalesLogix®, the mid-market CRM leader (customer relationship management) used by over 3,500 companies; and ACT!™, the best-selling contact manager used by more than 3.2 million professionals and 11,000 corporations.

In a world where customers can switch brands at the click of a mouse, cultivating and caring for customers is more critical — and more difficult — than ever before. Traditional CRM-only solutions focus squarely on the front office. We believe the key to attracting and retaining customers is through an open architecture that interconnects the front office, the back office, and the Internet (or web office). Our open architecture enables companies to build cohesive, complete customer histories that can be shared across departments and geographies.

Regardless of whether you choose SalesLogix or ACT!, you can expect from Interact Commerce:

    Solutions designed to maximize your selling time. Easy-to-use features “think” just like a salesperson so you don’t have to re-learn something to use it. Simple navigational commands present key selling and customer information in a single view.

    Solutions that get you up and running fast. No matter what, your business has to keep running. Bringing it down for even a day or two to install software costs you money. With significant out-of-the-box functionality and industry standard technologies, you’ll get a faster return on investment than other solutions provide.

    Solutions that you can access anytime, anywhere. Whether you access customer information through a standalone computer, a network, the Internet, handheld PCs, or wireless technology, we provide you with 24x7 real-time capabilities so you can do business when — and how — it suits you.

    Solutions that are flexible enough to work the way you do. Flexible architectures and tools give you the option to customize exactly to your selling process and your business.

On March 27, 2001 Interact Commerce Corporation (Nasdaq: IACT), announced a definitive merger agreement with The Sage Group plc, a leading worldwide supplier of business management solutions and services for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). The all-cash offer, structured at $12 per share of Interact Commerce, is valued at approximately $263 million. Interact Commerce will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Sage Group plc.

“The combination of Interact and Sage will create a global force in the software industry,” said Pat Sullivan, chairman and CEO of Interact Commerce Corporation. “Sage is the world’s leading supplier of back-office business management solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises. Combined, we have the resources and technology to impact this market from a position of tremendous strength by offering a truly integrated suite of applications for the front office, back office, and web office.”

“Both our organizations understand the unique needs of small and mid-sized customers and believe the best way to reach and support these customers is through a reseller channel. This was very important in our decision to merge with Sage. I believe this is an exciting development for our business partners, customers, and employees,” added Sullivan.

Paul Walker, Sage’s Chief Executive commented, “This acquisition gives us a strong position in the CRM market and represents a significant opportunity to sell additional products and services to Sage’s 2.5 million customers worldwide. It also opens up additional markets for Interact’s products in new and existing geographies. While penetration of CRM software amongst Sage customers is currently estimated at less than 10%, our research suggests that demand is already high and is likely to grow significantly over the next few years.”

Walker continued, “Interact’s CEO and founder, Pat Sullivan, has a wealth of CRM experience and is a highly respected figure within the industry. Over the past few years, Pat Sullivan has built up a professional management team at Interact and this team will remain in place post-acquisition to effect Sage’s strategic plans for the future development of Interact’s business.”

About The Sage Group plc
The Sage Group plc is the leading supplier of business management software and related products and services to the small and medium sized business community worldwide. The Sage Group plc encompasses market-leading businesses in the UK and Europe and market-leading products in the US. In addition products are available in many other countries throughout the world via an extensive network of authorized dealers. The Sage Group plc now has 2.5 million customers worldwide and employs over 4500 people. Sage’s revenues for its fiscal year ending September 30, 2000 were 412 million British pounds or approximately US $600 million. The company can be found on the World Wide Web at www.Sage.com.

Further details on the financial condition of the company and total installed base are included in our complete In-Depth Review.

Product:  ACT! 2005

About the product:

Best Software Empowers Front-Line Salespeople With New ACT!® 2005 Contact And Customer Management Product Family

The #1 selling ACT! sets a new price-to-value benchmark with a powerful feature set and scalable, leading-edge architecture previously found only in expensive, complex CRM solutions

New York, NY August 24, 2004 - Best Software today announced its ACT! 2005 contact and customer management product family, launching the most expansive architecture and features introduction in the product's seventeen-year history. Against the backdrop of New York City's Times Square, the company unveiled two new versions of its market-leading ACT! sales effectiveness tool: ACT! 2005 for individuals and small teams of up to ten users, and ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups supporting powerful database collaboration for workgroups of up to 50 users.1 Both products deliver the same ACT! user experience with a fast return on investment and up to 50% lower cost of ownership than hosted alternatives.

"Sales professionals, small businesses and corporate workgroups increasingly require tools that provide the powerful opportunity management attributes of leading CRM systems with the ease-of-use and low cost associated with personal information managers," explained Ron Verni, Best Software CEO. "ACT! 2005 revolutionizes this formula to provide the entire spectrum of individuals, small teams and larger workgroups with the best degree of connection to their customers, delivering easy and affordable tools that increase their productivity and elevate sales."

The new ACT! 2005 product family further builds out a portfolio of easy to implement, flexible and affordable Best Software business management solutions for small and medium-sized businesses - also including the ACCPAC and SalesLogix CRM Suites.

ACT! created the contact and customer management software category in 1987, becoming the defacto standard for helping people organize, access and manage their comprehensive customer details in a single, integrated solution. Today, ACT! holds the leading U.S. retail market share for contact management software (12/03 - 05/04 NPD).

"ACT! 2005 empowers front-line sales professionals to effectively manage their opportunity pipeline, while providing the reporting capabilities that management requires," explains Joe Bergera, general manager for ACT! at Best Software. "For example, many sales teams and workgroups need more advanced sales opportunity management than simple information managers allow, but do not require a complex enterprise CRM solution. ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups fulfills the needs of this underserved workgroup segment and delivers significant cost advantage in year one over hosted solutions, like Salesforce.com."

Key benefits of ACT! 2005 and ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups include:

• Low cost and ease-of-use combined with the advanced selling tools typically found in expensive CRM systems

• Little to no need for expensive IT resources

• Scalable relational data architecture to empower front-line sales professionals and workgroups of up to 50 users

• Robust .NET platform and SQL database for long-term investment protection

• Up to 50% lower total cost of ownership and faster return on investment than expensive, hosted alternatives

"As a $1.7 billion unit of Fortune 500 company Textron Inc., our internal and external sales teams work with an extensive list of customers in every major market sector including automotive, aerospace, construction and consumer markets, all of which have hundreds of divisions with specific business requirements," explained Greig DeSautel, Director of Strategic Operations, Textron Fastening Systems. "The value of collaborating through ACT! increases daily by providing our salespeople with a customized approach that gives them the ability to meet and, more importantly, exceed customer expectations for our manufacturing systems. ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups propels us even further with the ability to link divisions and contacts with the new company record features. Our IT people are extremely excited too, considering the relational database and levels of security Best Software has built into the product."

The ACT! 2005 product family represents version 7.0 of the global, award-winning software, re-architected with Microsoft® SQL Server 2000 to allow powerful database collaboration and network security that scales for larger workgroups. ACT! 2005 is one of the first major productivity applications engineered with Microsoft .NET, initiating a design blueprint that Best Software will use to further evolve next-generation ACT! productivity features.

Many of the over 50 new features and hundreds of usability enhancements in ACT! 2005 were implemented from user requests generated from the base of over 2 million registered ACT! users.

"ACT! has the unique ability to manage all the details that make or break a business," noted Jim Jobin, President of TheWritersEdge.com. "We have used ACT! to manage relationships, close sales and track nearly every stage of opportunity development for over a decade. ACT! helps our people access precise details about each customer, the instant they are needed, to close important deals. I cannot imagine our achieving this level of success without it."

ACT! 2005 Key Feature Enhancements

ACT! 2005 strengthens the workflow and effectiveness of salespeople by integrating opportunity forecasting tools around enhanced contact management features to help individuals and teams:

• Track relationships with company records for effective account management

• Manage their opportunity pipeline for an improved bottom line

• Apply advanced group management for better customer segmentation

• Customize their database with advanced field types and activity types

• Directly integrate with office applications such as Microsoft Excel, Word and Outlook

• Manage relationships with an updated and more intuitive interface

ACT! 2005 Sales Forecasting Tools

ACT! 2005 forecasting tools empower front-line salespeople to:

• Manage all their opportunities in one place using a more powerful and customizable list view

• Export opportunity and contact lists to Microsoft Excel in one click for instant data analysis and reporting

• Generate instant sales quotes without re-entering data for improved efficiency

• Create or import product lists with item numbers, cost and price to automate quote generation

• Forecast sales using built-in reports, or create their own using the improved report designer for accurate opportunity views

• Track opportunities through their chosen sales cycle with graphical pipeline analysis for real-world sales management

ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups

New ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups includes all ACT! 2005 features and, additionally, is optimized to help larger workgroups:

• Share data easily and securely with up to 50 users for improved workgroup collaboration and sales effectiveness

• Synchronize data from multiple users into a central database from inside or outside the company firewall to ensure data consistency

• Assign access rights to specific contacts by users or teams of users to secure data and manage permissions

• Check team member availability for meetings, calls and tasks to organize and maintain efficient scheduling

• Send meeting invitations and schedule resources, such as conference rooms and equipment

The Times Square Studios launch of ACT! 2005 marked the first in a series of Best Software events that will introduce the product family to regional U.S. and international audiences. Following product demonstrations and customer presentations, guests were treated to a free concert featuring The Bacon Brothers Band.

ACT! 2005 Product Family From Best Software

ACT! has over 700 Certified Consultants worldwide to assist small and medium-sized businesses with implementation, customization, training and support. In addition, dozens of ACT! Add-on partners create applications to help users further extend the functionality of ACT! (see today's "Best Software Introduces Powerful Add-on Products" press release for further details). Best Software also offers its own software links including ACT! Link for Peachtree® that is included with all copies of ACT! 2005 so users can seamlessly view and update key accounting data within ACT!.

Price:

ACT! 2005 retails for $229.99 (upgrade $149.95 MSRP) and ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups retails for $399.99 (upgrade $259.95 MSRP). The ACT! 2005 product family is available for purchase now at www.act.com/estore or by calling 877-ACT-2005.

ACT! 2005 products can be purchased at popular software retailers, e-tailers and direct resellers including Office Depot, CompUSA, Staples, Best Buy, amazon.com, OfficeMax, Fry's, and Micro Center beginning in mid-September.

Complete details on pricing are included in our complete In-Depth Review.

In-Depth Review:

This program is best suited for the solo sales professional or small sales teams who interact over a local area network. The program provides modest customization capabilities. However, this is shortcoming is offset by ACT!’s ease of use. This is a great starter CRM solution for almost any small business or small sales team.

The program does a great job of the following:

• Training Support

• Ease Of Use

• Contact Management

• Activity Management

• Back Office Integration

 The program does an acceptable job of the following:

• Communications Capabilities

• Internet Capabilities

• Documentation

• Technical Support

• Credibility

• Software Quality

• Customization & Flexibility

• International Support

• Reporting Capabilities

• Word Processing & Office Support

• Field Sales Support Capabilities

 The program needs improvement in the following:

• Database Synchronization Capabilities

• Knowledge Management Capabilities

Scalability	Small		Medium		Large
Scope	Classic		Clicks & Mortar		Dot Com
Sales Cycle	Short		Continuous		Long
Functions	Marketing		Field Sales		Support

Order In-Depth Review:  V437      Price:  $47.00

Note: This review should be available real soon now!

Short List:

If you are considering this program, you should also look at these other CRM Solutions:

Rich's Recommended Web Sites

Best selling author Jeffrey Mayer's web site for dispensing great ACT! advice.

www.actnews.com

Rich's Recommended Reading List

Learn ACT! 2000 for the Advanced User by Deborah Bean and Neal Berkowitz Provides some introductory coverage of the software appropriate for beginners, although much of the book is targeted for experienced ACT! users in a business setting.    Special Edition Using ACT! 2000 by Curtis Knight and Nancy Sparks Special Edition Using ACT! 2000 anticipates the needs of an everyday user and supports the user ergonomically. Readers should feel quite able to navigate and utilize information in the text no matter what their ultimate goals may be.    ACT! 2000 Fast & Easy by Richard Cravens ACT! 2000 Fast & Easy provides you with an easy, visual way to learn this popular contact management program. Step-by-step, screen-by-screen, this book provides precise guidance new users need.    ACT! 2000 for Windows for Dummies by Jeffrey J. Mayer A time-management expert shows readers time-saving and productivity-enhancing tips when using ACT!, the market leader in contact management software.

Copyright © 2004 by The Denali Group, Inc. (www.sellmorenow.com)