Full Service ACT! and SalesLogix Software Partner
Whats New
October 06, 2004
Best Software Introduces SalesLogix For Pocket PC Extending Full Featured CRM To The Mobile Workforce

Best Software today introduced SalesLogix® for Pocket PC at the Gartner CRM Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. SalesLogix for Pocket PC mirrors the familiar SalesLogix 6.2 user interface while delivering full-featured CRM functionality with real-time wireless convenience. Developed with the latest in mobile technology, SalesLogix for Pocket PC is built on the Microsoft .NET framework to provide organizations with the same flexibility and rich customization capabilities they experience in the SalesLogix environment.

SalesLogix for Pocket PC is the most robust mobile application in the CRM marketplace, noted Jon Van Duyne, senior vice president and general manager for Best Software Mid-Market CRM. SalesLogix for Pocket PC allows users to go beyond basic look-ups of contact information and take advantage of rich CRM functionality such as account, contact, opportunity and ticket management, even while away from the office.

Gartner identifies mobile field sales capabilities among the top ten CRM software selection criteria in its recent research survey of 158 medium-sized businesses.1 SalesLogix for Pocket PC addresses this emerging need so users can immediately take advantage of the convenience and productivity provided through handheld devices.

We have 400 employees using SalesLogix 6.2 and view SalesLogix for Pocket PC as a productivity tool that will roll out to many of our field reps who need instant access to patient records without having to boot up a laptop, stated David van der Linden, director of sales and marketing applications for Cyberonics. The benefits of extending CRM data to our mobile sales team are immense considering the account contact, note taking and opportunity tracking features that will be used frequently, as well as the simple synchronization methods available. The ROI is definitely there.
April 08, 2004
Best Software Extends Elite CRM Industry Status

Best Software, Inc. today announced that SalesLogix®, the company’s industry leading customer relationship management (CRM) software solution, has been recognized with two awards for product leadership in the small and medium business (SMB) CRM software market.

Information Systems Marketing Inc. (ISM), a CRM consulting firm providing comprehensive advice and CRM software evaluations, has named SalesLogix version 6.1 among its Top 15 Small and Medium Business CRM Software Packages for 2004. The award, which serves as a standard for the CRM industry, was presented at the DCI CRM Conference & Exhibition in Chicago, IL by Barton Goldenberg, co-founder and co-chairman of the conference and president of ISM.

“Best Software is to be praised for obtaining another Top 15 CRM software honor from ISM,” said Goldenberg. “Our benchmark testing is comprehensive and strenuous, allowing only the elite CRM solutions, such as SalesLogix, to make our short list of solutions that we actively recommend for implementation.”

SalesLogix was chosen as a top CRM software solution after the ISM Software Lab put a field of CRM packages through intensive testing. Each CRM package was evaluated on 202 selection criteria, including 105 business functions, 47 technical features, 33 implementation capabilities and 17 user-support features.

CRM Momentum Continues with Product of the Year Honor

Technology Marketing Corporation's (TMC®) Communications Solutions® magazine, the premier Web publication and newsletter in the communications industry, has also recognized SalesLogix version 6.1 with its “Product of the Year” award. The publication’s editors cited SalesLogix technology and vision as key criteria for the selection. SalesLogix attributes including Oracle database support, Support functionality and Web performance were further examined to secure this honor.

The SalesLogix CRM product suite is designed specifically for small and medium-sized business. It has a history of being easy to use that stems from its ACT! heritage — the best-selling contact and customer manager from Best Software that tracks and manages relationships by placing valuable information in front of the user, when it is needed most. SalesLogix delivers integrated Sales, Marketing and Customer Support automation solutions with low cost of ownership, rapid time to productivity and high return on investment. Flexible and easy to use, SalesLogix readily accommodates growth and changing business requirements.

Best Software is the worldwide small business CRM applications market leader, owning a 25% share as recognized by Gartner, Inc.
October 10, 2003
Best Software's Momentum Continues...

... as ACT! Customer Base Nears Two Million Individual Users and 16,000 Corporate Customer Accounts Keys to Success Include Customer Driven Innovation, Multi-Platform Strategy for Access to Critical Data, and an Extensive Nationwide Business Partner Network.

Best Software today announced that ACT! has hit a record number of customers -- 1.9 million registered individual users and 16,000 corporate customers -- further solidifying ACT!'s leading position as the best-selling contact management solution in the market today.

The company continues to steadily grow retail customers that purchase ACT! for individuals and small businesses, as well as the number of organizations that select ACT! as their small business or corporate workgroup solution. According to a recent NPD Techworld report that evaluated both point-of-sale (POS) and consumer tracking information for approximately 90% of the market, ACT! was one of the top ten business management programs sold in retail for July 2003. In addition, Best Software has been adding close to 5,000 corporate customer accounts annually for the past three years.

"The rapid growth of both individual users and organizations selecting ACT! for contact management is a testament to our relentless focus on meeting small business customer needs," said Greg Head, general manager of ACT!. "We deliver a product that is easy to use and provides high levels of return on investment, the two most critical considerations for prospective users."

Much of ACT!'s success can be attributed to more than 16 years of customer-driven innovation to deliver solutions that truly help small businesses gain insight and meet everyday business needs. Recent innovations include the availability of ACT! on multiple platforms with Windows, Web and Palm versions of the software, as well as the ability to link data to Palm and Pocket PC devices. Access to complete customer and contact information on a variety of platforms enables business owners and selling professionals to be productive, whether they are in the office or on the road.

Additionally, ACT! integrates with business management solutions small businesses use every day, including Microsoft Office(R), e-mail applications such as Microsoft Outlook(R), Outlook Express, Lotus Notes and Eudora, and popular accounting packages such as Best Software's Peachtree Accounting(R) and MAS 90, as well as QuickBooks(R). Integration with other business management solutions provides ACT! users with insight about their customers across their entire business for better decision making.
July 18, 2003
Best Software Wins 2003 CRM Excellence Award for SalesLogix

Best Software today announced that SalesLogix was awarded the CRM Excellence Award from Customer Inter@ction Solutions® magazine, a premier CRM, call center and teleservices magazine published since 1982 by Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC®).

"We are thrilled to be recognized by Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine for delivering a CRM solution that offers customers superior CRM functionality and a high return on investment,” said Jim Foster, EVP of Best Software. “With over 5,300 customers, SalesLogix continues to provide organizations with a solution that offers high levels of end-user adoption, drives sales performance within the organization, and provides teams with insight into the entire customer lifecycle through integration with other business management applications.”

The fourth annual CRM Excellence Awards were presented to companies whose products or services have proven invaluable in helping their clients implement successful CRM strategies and maintain customer relationships from acquisition through retention. Awards are based on hard data — facts and numbers demonstrating the improvements that the winner's product has made in a client's business.

"Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine implemented the CRM Excellence Awards as a way of commending the companies that have proven to be true CRM partners to their customers and clients,” said Nadji Tehrani, Chairman & CEO, TMC. “Best Software has demonstrated to the editors of Customer Inter@ction Solutions that their products and services have substantially improved the processes of their client's businesses by streamlining and facilitating the flow of information needed for companies to retain their most precious asset ... their customers."
December 10, 2002
ACT! introduces new version

ACT! 6.0 delivers over 50 new features including a new e-mail client and advanced integration with Microsoft Outlook

ACT!TM, the best-selling contact manager from Best Software, today announced the availability of ACT! version 6.0. This newest version represents ACT!'s most comprehensive contact management product released yet. With over 50 new features, ACT! 6.0 is an upgrade for all previous users of ACT! for Windows. The primary focus of this new release is a completely new e-mail client and advanced integration with Microsoft Outlook®.

"Our customer surveys have told us that our users spend an average of six hours a day in ACT! With ACT! being such an essential part of our users' workday, it was critical that with ACT! 6.0, we enabled integration with the tools our customers use on a daily basis such as e-mail, Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat and the Internet," said Greg Head, general manager of ACT!, Best Software. "In addition, over the last year we have announced new products that enable integration with PDAs and accounting products such as QuickBooks Pro/Premier and Peachtree Accounting. By providing integration between ACT! contact data and other applications and devices, we are giving our customers the ability to leverage contact management to its fullest and benefit from having all of the data they need linked to the relevant contact record."

The ACT! 6.0 e-mail client has been completely upgraded. Users can use the new ACT! e-mail as a standalone client or integrate with and view Outlook, Outlook Express, SMTP/POP3 (Internet Mail) and Lotus Notes e-mail folders from within ACT!. Users can set up multiple accounts and view them all from within ACT!. Because tracking the history of e-mail correspondence is a critical part of contact management, there are three history options that are available when sending e-mail from either ACT! e-mail or Outlook. In addition to traditional e-mail history options such as including the subject line only in the notes section or attaching the full e-mail to the contact record, users now have the option to attach the subject plus the text of the message in the notes section. This option is especially useful to corporate customers with large workgroups working from a single database.

Additional new e-mail features include the ability to send and receive HTML e-mails from within ACT!, the ability to instantly add new contacts to any ACT! database, and the ability to access both ACT! and Outlook address books, regardless of the application in which the user is currently working.

"There are so many of the new features in ACT! 6.0 that our business has been able to take advantage of such as Outlook integration, Active Libraries and the Internet services," said David Hartmann, director of information technology at Montgomery & Graham, Inc. "But one of our favorite features is the calendar pop-ups. Although simple in concept, there are no other programs that do this, including Outlook. Advanced scheduling is the backbone of our business and the quick calendar pop-ups give us all the details we need in seconds, saving us valuable time which is money in our business."

In addition to the new e-mail client and Outlook integration, a full list of new features may be found at www.act.com/upgrade. However, highlights of ACT! 6.0 include:

Active Libraries- From the Library Tab, users can directly attach Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint/MapPoint documents, Adobe Acrobat documents (PDF), JPG files and BMP files to the contact record and view them from within that contact record, without launching a separate application. In addition, these documents can be edited from that view using all of the native Microsoft Office toolbars and then saved or printed.

Excel Integration-Using an Excel document that has been attached to the Library Tab, users can map fields from their database to fields in Excel for simple and efficient quoting. One quote sheet template can easily be attached to all the contacts in the database for quick updating and quote generation.

Contact Activity Look-ups-This data mining feature enables users to gain insight into the customers and activities in their database with a just a few clicks. Users can perform a contact activity look-up to uncover which customers they have contacted recently, as well as which ones have not been contacted in a specified time frame. From the look-up they can schedule follow-up activities, send an e-mail or derive a call list.

Annual Event Tracking-Another data mining feature, Annual Event Tracking enables users to specify any date fields in their database as annual events. By doing this, users can manage their events such as birthdays, anniversaries, and policy renewals with a simple annual event look-up. This gives users advance notice of the event so they have time to react appropriately, such as sending a birthday greeting in advance of the event date.

Enhanced Internet Services-Now, users can access Web sites from within ACT! using the built-in Internet Browser and attach relevant Web pages to one or more contacts. The pages are saved as offline Web pages so users can access the information even when they are not connected, or when the page is no longer available online. HTML E-mail Templates-ACT! 6.0 ships with 10 HTML e-mail templates for everything from birthdays to e-newsletters to order confirmations. Using the new mail-merge wizard users can correspond with their customers in a professional and efficient manner.

"Active Libraries is a great example of how ACT! 6.0 allows us to multi-task programs without having to go back and forth between two or three. The fact that ACT! integrates with all of the tools my team uses every day and that these tools can all be accessed without ever leaving ACT! is what makes it invaluable to us. There isn't anything you can't do with it!," said Hartmann.

Current and new users can get up and running with ACT! 6.0 in a matter of minutes. Current users simply install ACT! 6.0 and previous databases will be converted seamlessly to work with ACT! 6.0.
December 10, 2002
Best Software Introduces SalesLogix Version 6.0

More than 200 new feature and architectural enhancements drive efficiencies and sales performance for end users and administrators

Best Software today announced the availability of version 6.0 of SalesLogix®, the leading small business and mid-market CRM product. SalesLogix 6.0 is built on a new architecture that enables easier integration with back-office systems and other applications small and mid-sized organizations use every day to gain insight into their customers. With more than 200 product enhancements, significant additions have been made to the SalesLogix Sales Client, SalesLogix Web Client, and SalesLogix Support WebTicket to ensure SalesLogix customers continue to achieve increased efficiency, sales performance, and rapid return on investment.

“This product is an architectural breakthrough for us that will make implementing and configuring a CRM solution faster and easier than ever,” said SalesLogix General Manager Tim Fargo. “SalesLogix 6.0 gives our customers the foundation they need to keep pace with emerging business opportunities and technologies, such as integrating their CRM application with back-office applications, using .NET applications, and leveraging web services. The new architecture and significant feature enhancements better enable SalesLogix to grow and evolve along with the changing business needs of our customers.”

The SalesLogix architecture was enhanced to increase developer productivity, enable quicker customization, and lower implementation time and costs. SalesLogix 6.0 is based on a 3-tier architectural environment with a standardized toolset for open development and rapid deployment. The architecture facilitates data integration with applications built in Visual Basic, Visual Studio .NET, or any other development environment that supports industry-standard Microsoft ADO data access. The new architecture also allows for backward compatibility with existing customizations and add-on products, simplifying the upgrade process for customers and partners.

“The bar has been raised! SalesLogix 6.0 makes implementing CRM solutions for our customers easier than ever,” said Ryan Farley, lead application developer for Customer FX Corporation, a Certified SalesLogix Business Partner. “The new SalesLogix Provider gives unlimited flexibility to integrate existing web services, web applications, or desktop applications into a complete solution to fit a customer's needs. With SalesLogix 6.0, I can build applications and services with .NET or other development environments and have it appear as a built-in part of SalesLogix. Developing CRM solutions has never been easier.”

SalesLogix Administrators running SalesLogix 6.0 can reduce the time spent on manual tasks by using the streamlined new-user entry process with user profile templates and the simple, flexible user and team security controls. Other enhanced processes include: account permission configuration for teams, advanced territory realignment with scenario analysis, improved integrity checking to eliminate “orphan” accounts, and easy identification of users and teams that have access to an account.

In addition to the new architecture, users will benefit from the following enhancements:

Sales Client User Interface — Users can manage multiple addresses within account and contact records; create account hierarchy and navigate among parent and subsidiary accounts; and launch customer and prospect location maps, websites, and e-mail with one-click web access. In addition, SalesLogix 6.0 ships with Crystal Reports® version 8.5.

Tighter Integration with Microsoft® Office — SalesLogix 6.0 offers one-click export to Excel for analysis and reporting. In addition, SalesLogix offers Word integration for mail merge and advanced Outlook® integration.

Significant Mail Merge Improvements — This feature is easier to use with template management; merge at contact, account, opportunity, or group level; and the ability to automatically exclude individuals based on their solicitation preferences. Users can also attach a record or copy of the e-mail and attachments to a recipient’s history records and automatically schedule activities as part of sales or marketing workflow.

New AutoSync Feature — For mobile employees, SalesLogix 6.0 now automatically synchronizes in the background when a web connection is available. Employees can work without disruption, no longer having to remember to manually synchronize their data when returning to the office.

Enhanced Web Client Functionality — SalesLogix customers will enjoy Outlook and Excel integration, Crystal Enterprise® web reporting, mail merge with customizable e-mail templates, and the groups and query builder. The user interface has been updated with an improved design and additional functionality to mirror the robust functionality of the SalesLogix Windows client.

Improved Support WebTicket — Designed to significantly improve ticket workflow and application usability, the Support WebTicket has a look and navigation that is very similar to the SalesLogix Support Client. Enhancements include: integrated knowledge base with keyword highlighting and automatic creation of FAQs; customer self-service portal with two-way communication; addition of activities and attachments to tickets by both employees and customers; and employee visibility to defects, RMAs, and ticket changes.

Code 3 Collectibles, a retailer of high-quality scale-model replicas, participated in the SalesLogix 6.0 Beta and has already upgraded. “The way the new version of SalesLogix is architected, it’s obviously designed to provide greater customization and integration capabilities,” said John Meyer, CIO of Code 3 Collectibles. “It offers a more standardized operating environment, and will allow us to continue tailoring our solution to meet the unique needs of our business in less time and at lower cost.” Code 3’s SalesLogix system is already integrated with Platinum for Windows by Best Software for accounting and financials, and with Code 3’s order fulfillment and shipping software.

“The single biggest feature our end-users like so far is the new mail merge capabilities,” Meyer added. “We do a lot of e-mail marketing, so I’ll be using the HTML capability often. In addition, SalesLogix 6.0 is even easier to use because of the refined user interface and more accessible location of the menu options and toolbars.”

New York City:

The Helmsley Building
230 Park Avenue
10th Floor
New York, NY 10169
(212) 481-7777
Email: info@exeplexcrm.com

Westchester:

75 South Broadway, 4th Floor
White Plains, NY  10601
(914) 289-1900
(914) 206-4180 fax