bit-tech Shopping: Sage ACT! 2007 (Full Product)

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Rating: 4

Time with product: 8

Strengths: History.

Weaknesses: Email integration is still non-existant.

Summary: I had hoped this bloated code would work properly with Outlook without freezing. Of course it still doesn't. Apparently SAGE doesn't utilize Q/A staff. To release a program like this with the number a freezes and problems is unforgivable. When will we see an update? An inline release? Who knows? I wonder if this is the last gasp for this formally great product.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 18 Years

Strengths: Easy, inexpensive way to organize yourself and your business.

Weaknesses: Don't run this software on your outdated computer.

Summary: You might call me a "Dummy" (after all, I've written 9 "For Dummies" books) but, in my opinion, ACT knocks the socks off of its competition. It has more security features and functionality than BCM, and is much easier to use than salesforce.com (not to mention less pricey). So why all the negative reviews? First of all, mastering any software application requires much more than using the software; buying a scalpel doesn't make you a brain surgeon. I don't "assume" to know everything about a piece of software just because I've "used" it for years. Most of the problems mentioned throughout these reviews are based on "user error;" in fact, most users never both to perform routine maintenance on their ACT database and then wonder why it's become corrupted. As for tech support - that's the way of the world. We want rock-bottom hardware and software pricing, but then we expect to have top-of-the-line support? I can't imagine a better way yourself and your business organized than ACT. Karen Fredricks Author, ACT for Dummies series

Rating: 10

Time with product: 5 Years

Strengths: All I need, and a gret price.

Weaknesses: Need RAM

Summary: I could not run my business without ACT!, I have been a user since version 4.0 and now run v2008 and love it. My entire staff loves it. Upgrading was a bit of a challenge at first because I had older computers, but once I upgraded some of the older PC RAM, all was running better than ever. I love the scalability (we have a large database) and even better is the integration with Office, mainly Outlook. So much better than it ever has been. Keep up the good work ACT!

Rating: 2

Time with product: 6 Months

Strengths: Claims to be full featured CRM

Weaknesses: Where do I begin?

Summary: Want to spell check your e-mail before sending. Sure, turn on spell checker and watch this program do no more than count the words for you and tell you that you have 0 spelling errors. Regardless of what gibberish you type.Want to create a group of 1000 contacts, sure. By try to schedule a meeting with them all you will quickly find that you need to manually cut and paste 120 or so contacts at a time. Open up e-mail, what? Nothing! Blank screen. Close e-mail, open up again, no? One more time, OK now we are getting somewhere.Look, there in the history, you sent an e-mail to this contact. Great, let me see what it was all about. Crash. Restart ACT. Try again. Crash. I guess I will never see what was in that e-mail that I sent to my customer.Do yourself a favor, stay away like others said!

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1

Strengths: Sometimes I log into my web-hosted version-from any pc. This is great because I am often on site with clients. Other times I log into my local sync version.The best of both worlds. I am loving it!

Weaknesses: Although a tad slower than ACT 5 and ACT 6, it compensates by being able to handle hundreds of thousands of contacts as well as numerous users.

Summary: I have used ACT! for years and installed/used every version since ACT! 2000. I can honestly say that ACT! 2007 is by far the best version they have put out. It is amazingly flexible. I love the seamless email integration with Outlook. Much better than previous versions. Our whole company runs on it - 15 users. Our office staff records each telephone call into the contact history and is empowered to schedule/reschedule our consultants on the fly. And with an additional dashboard plug-in I am able to measure how many hours we are scheduling and billing - and seeing incredible bar graph reports and pie charts. I honestly couldn't run my business without it. I also love how I am able to sync all my ACT! data to my TREO700p.