Lon: Have you given up on Act! 2007?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ed Marmon
  • Start date Start date
E

Ed Marmon

Or are you just adding BCM to your bag of supported software?

I ask because I'm trialling Act! 2007, which I never thought I would after
the ACt 2005 debacle, and I actually like it...

Thoughts?

And nore importantly, do you know of a 3rd party chat forum other than the
one hosted by Act! ( which is anemic ) where I can read some poop about the
product and tips & tricks?

Thanks
 
Well, that's a tough question. I've not given up on ACT! -- our pinpoint
Marketing tool works with it just fine. ACT! wants to sell 25-50 user deals
and we have thousands of users in the 1-10 user market who are left without
a good option, so I migrated our customized pinpoint Solutions to BCM.

Our experience is that ACT! 2005-2007 is too hard for many small businesses
to make work correctly without using a Certified Consultant. That's an
added cost on top of the cost of the software which is an added cost
compared to BCM.

There is an ACT! forum on Yahoo that you might check out... BTW, you won't
be able to use Office 2007 or Vista with ACT! 2007 -- that may come in
2008...

HTH,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com
 
Hmm... Too hard... Of course, you know better than I how Act! is and was
marketed as the "easy" solution! ...And you'll find people pooh-poohing
other CRM's such as Goldmine as being difficult compared to Act!...
That's why it's interesting you put it the way you did.

Have you any unofficial thoughts as to when the BCM people will get
themselves together and release BCM 3.1 to fix many of the strange
workflow-decelerating nonfeatures of BCM, so as to really make it a
nobrainer in terms of viabilty? ( 2-3 click single-letter mail merge
comes to mind ).

I bought and may return Act! 2007 due to it's clunkiness, 1997-style
email integration, fumbling spell checker, and other quirkiness.

Thanks
 
Ed:

No, I don't have any official or unofficial estimates. I do know that the
BCM Team is really trying hard to make BCM a great product -- they have
great intentions. That said, they work for a large behemoth and they can't
just post a new version that fixes a few things, like we can. Their other
problem which is no small factor, is that BCM is linked to Outlook and NO
ONE screws around with Outlook. It's a huge part of Microsoft's platform
and all the other programs tiptoe around when interacting with it. So,
releasing fixes to BCM will always be slower than we'd like because of the
compatibility issues and testing required with Outlook.

HTH,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com
 
to you folds: I have given up on Act! because 2007 was the last straw. I
have no problem using the product, it is just that 2005 caused me to rebuild
my system due to SQL problems, 2006 updated fine but it took the technician 3
1/2 hours today to remove 2006 and re load 2007 because of the SQL problems.
I am looking at BCM but nervous. I just want something to work that I can
rely on.
 
Lon,

Your comments about NO ONE screwing around with Outlook were interesting.
The very point of BCM is that it is supposed to work within Outlook and
enhance capability. Outlook by itself is lacking in vital functionality and
for there to be this smug hands-off mindset just makes no sense. BCM by its
very nature is an attempt to "mess-with" Outlook to make the messaging client
more complete than just a PIM. MS needs to rethink the sacred nature of
their beloved Outlook so that the cobbled together end result of it together
with BCM can be improved upon.

-THP

Lon said:
Ed:

No, I don't have any official or unofficial estimates. I do know that the
BCM Team is really trying hard to make BCM a great product -- they have
great intentions. That said, they work for a large behemoth and they can't
just post a new version that fixes a few things, like we can. Their other
problem which is no small factor, is that BCM is linked to Outlook and NO
ONE screws around with Outlook. It's a huge part of Microsoft's platform
and all the other programs tiptoe around when interacting with it. So,
releasing fixes to BCM will always be slower than we'd like because of the
compatibility issues and testing required with Outlook.

HTH,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com
Hmm... Too hard... Of course, you know better than I how Act! is and was
marketed as the "easy" solution! ...And you'll find people pooh-poohing
Click to expand...
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Click to expand...
 
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