CRM Software Industry News

Real-time accounts receivable and payable information within ACT! provides comprehensive view of customer and vendor estimates, invoices, sales and payments

Scottsdale, Ariz. - September 12, 2005 - Sage Software today added ACT! Link for use with QuickBooks to its ACT! by Sage 2006 contact and customer management product family. ACT! 2006, released last week, is the latest version of the #1 selling contact and customer management tool in use by over 2.5 million sales professionals and more than 30,000 corporate accounts worldwide. ACT! Link for use with QuickBooks is part of the expanded accounting link integrations designed for ACT! 2006 and ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006, to provide users with real-time access to accounts receivable and payable information within ACT! while eliminating the need to duplicate data entry in multiple applications.1
“As a market leading business solution, it is important for ACT! to integrate with many common applications,” noted Joe Bergera, ACT! senior vice president and general manager for Sage Software. “By delivering this integration, QuickBooks users have the capability to quickly view and perform accounting tasks alongside key ACT! contact and customer data to make more insightful, high-impact business decisions.”

ACT! helps users organize the contact details, notes, histories, appointments and documents required to build and sustain successful customer relationships. ACT! includes sales forecasting and opportunity tracking capabilities that can be used as is or customized to address various business requirements.

Users can now link their ACT! 2006 and QuickBooks Professional or Premier databases to view history and details of every customer and vendor transaction including estimates, invoices, sales and payments. Accounting information can be filtered by date range or transaction type. Users can create a new QuickBooks customer or vendor record from an existing ACT! contact record and automatically establish a link for easy access to information between each. Customer and vendor information can be kept current via ACT! to QuickBooks, QuickBooks to ACT!, or two-way synchronization.

ACT! Link for use with QuickBooks accounting integration features

Quickly view snapshot customer and vendor status -
• View open balances, credit lines and past due balances for any customer to instantly determine if they are in good financial standing;
• View when a customer made their last purchase and last payment so to determine when it’s time to call them for reorders;
• View a complete history of a customer’s purchases for the month, the current fiscal year, or since they became a customer;
• View how long it takes customers to pay their bills, how frequently they order, and their average order amount;
• View vendor payments currently due and history of previous payments.

Easily link contacts, schedule activities and manage estimates -
• Easily create and edit contacts in ACT! and link them to corresponding records in QuickBooks, and vice versa;
• Schedule activities with alarm reminders for any ACT! user to take action on a QuickBooks estimate, invoice, sale or payment transaction;
• Create estimates quickly in ACT! and convert them to invoices, showing both the estimate and invoice in an accounts receivable summary;
• Keep on top of past due invoices by scheduling an activity to call customers or vendors if payments aren’t received – even choose how many days after the transaction to schedule the activity.

ACT! Link for use with QuickBooks 2006 – available by contacting Sage Software at 888-ACT-2006 or www.act.com/estore ($99.95 MSRP, upgrade 69.95 MSRP)

ACT! 2006 – for individuals and small teams of up to ten networked users, available at popular software retailers, e-tailers and direct resellers or by contacting Sage Software at 888-ACT-2006 or www.act.com/estore ($229.99 MSRP, upgrade $149.95 MSRP)

ACT! Premium for Workgroups 2006 – for workgroups of up to 50 networked users2 is available by contacting ACT! Corporate Licensing at 888-855-5222 and from more than 600 ACT! Certified Consultants located at www.act.com/certifiedconsultants
($399.99 MSRP, upgrade $259.95 MSRP)

(1) This functionality is available for users who each purchase the respective licenses for ACT! 2006, ACT! Link for QuickBooks and QuickBooks Professional or QuickBooks Premier 2005.

(2) Actual number of users and contacts supported will vary based on hardware and size and usage of your database. The 50 user limit is based on performance tests using minimum hardware requirements and is a recommendation. You must purchase one license of ACT! per user.

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Fourth Annual CRM Magazine Market Leader Awards honor ACT! by Sage, Sage CRM and SalesLogix, and name CEO Ron Verni a CRM industry influential leader

Scottsdale, Ariz. ?September 26, 2005 ?Sage Software today highlighted four market leadership awards presented by CRM Magazine spanning the company? entire CRM product portfolio. ACT! by Sage, the best-selling contact and customer management solution with over 2.5 million users worldwide, was awarded top honors again this year winning the sales force automation category. Sage CRM, the company? newest product, available both as a hosted service and on-premises solution , was awarded SMB Suite market leadership. SalesLogix, on the strength of its vertical market customization capabilities, was again awarded Midmarket Suite market leadership. Additionally, Ron Verni, Sage Software CEO, was named an Influential Industry Leader.

The CRM Market Leader awards recognize CRM vendors based on their measured reputation for customer satisfaction, depth of functionality, company direction, year-over-year revenue growth and industry analyst rankings.

?his is quite an impressive collection of accolades from one of our industry? authorities on CRM market development and customer success,?noted Ron Verni, CEO for Sage Software. ?ur specific focus on small and medium-sized businesses and the extensive value added for customers by our business partners have clearly led us to these honors.?/p>

The 2005 CRM Market Leader Awards are featured in the October issue of CRM Magazine. Editors highlight ACT!, Sage CRM and SalesLogix as ?art of any sensible list of leading CRM and SFA software for the SMB market.?The publication further recognizes ACT! for its growth to a full-featured SFA solution, Sage CRM for being the industry? first CRM product offered both as an on-premises or hosted solution, and Sage Software? continued focus on delivering mobile CRM solutions including SalesLogix for Pocket PC.

ACT! Product Family
ACT! created the contact and customer management software category in 1987. Today, ACT! is the preferred choice of over 2.5 million users and more than 30,000 corporate license customers to help increase productivity by managing the appointments, activities, documents and notes/histories required for effective customer communications. ACT! helps individuals, small business and corporate workgroups improve bottom-line results by automating and customizing key aspects of the sales cycle to provide better forecasting and opportunity tracking.

Sage Software introduced ACT! by Sage 2006 and ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 in September, adding enhanced sales opportunity tracking, expanded accounting link integrations and additional workgroup collaboration capabilities, among many new features. For more information, visit www.act.com or call 888-855-5222.

Sage CRM
Sage CRM is full-suite configurable customer relationship management software for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that is available both as a hosted service at SageCRM.com, and for on-premises deployment. In addition, a Sage Accpac edition provides bi-directional front office/back office integration with the award-winning Sage Accpac ERP accounting and operations management software. Sage CRM is fully Web-based and comes with an industry first rent-to-own investment protection guarantee that provides businesses with a critical safety net for their hosted CRM investment. Sage CRM is available through the Sage Software CRM business partner channel. For more information, visit www.sagecrm.com or call 800-975-5441.

SalesLogix CRM Suite
With over 7,000 customers and more than 300,000 users worldwide, SalesLogix is the CRM leader for small to medium-sized businesses. SalesLogix delivers easy-to-use and integrated sales, marketing, customer service and support automation solutions that can be tailored to an organization? unique customer acquisition, retention and development processes. SalesLogix is available through the Sage Software CRM business partner channel. For more information, visit www.sagesaleslogix.com or call 800-643-6400.

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ACT! customer service and marketing capabilities improve operations for thousands in the lending industry

Scottsdale, Ariz. – October 18, 2005 – Sage Software announced today that LoanToolbox, the leading provider of sales training and marketing resources for the lending industry, has implemented the ACT! by Sage contact and customer management solution to improve lead generation. Additionally, LoanToolbox has incorporated ACT! as part of its core service offering. In conjunction with the company’s training and consulting services, LoanToolbox members are provided with customized ACT! templates designed to expedite loan application processing and improve overall customer service and marketing operations within each organization.

“ACT! is an integral part of the value that we provide to our clients. Part of what we do is teach lending companies how to make contact and customer management an active part of their operations. Because many of our clients are selecting ACT! for their own use, we provide them with customized ACT! screen templates specifically designed for the lending industry. This allows our clients to immediately improve the way they work with their customers,” commented Rich Katz, president, LoanToolbox.

More than 3500 loan officers and executives – approximately half of LoanToolbox’s overall membership – have downloaded LoanToolbox’s customized ACT! templates to help track and sort customer information valuable to the loan application approval process. For example, LoanToolbox’s templates offer built in queries to help officers search records by loan type as well as contain fields that track information about applicants’ financial philosophies.

LoanToolbox also uses ACT! to execute its targeted marketing and sales efforts. The company’s unprecedented growth over the past two years prompted a 50 percent increase in ACT! contact records, now totaling more than 70,000.

“LoanToolbox’s use of ACT! is a testament to the strong customization features and marketing toolsets that the product has allowed us to enable for the company, said Michelle Horn, CEO of Bullfrog Solutions, an ACT! Certified Consultant. “The LoanToolbox members we work with tell us that the powerful yet intuitive ACT! customer and contact management solution is at the core of their sales, marketing and communications efforts.”

ACT! by Sage

ACT! is the preferred choice of over 2.5 million users to organize, access and manage their comprehensive customer details in a single, integrated solution. ACT! offers a powerful toolset to help companies, such as LoanToolbox, improve productivity and increase sales.The feature-rich ACT! toolset allows professionals, sales teams and corporate workgroups to:

Work with easy-to-use and time-tested features that can be customized for individual and industry-specific preferences;
Increase productivity by efficiently managing appointments, activities, documents, customer communications and campaigns and notes/histories;
Improve bottom-line results by automating and customizing key aspects of the sales cycle to provide better forecasting and opportunity tracking;
Access data quickly using keyword searches, detailed views and list sorting;
Organize data efficiently using group, sub-group and company categories; and
Collaborate with team members using Web or Windows permission-based access to customer information, team calendars and company resources.
ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 – for workgroups of up to 50 networked users is available by contacting ACT! Corporate Licensing at 888-855-5222 and from more than 600 ACT! Certified Consultants located at www.act.com/certifiedconsultants ($399.99 MSRP, upgrade $259.95 MSRP)

ACT! by Sage 2006 – for individuals and small teams of up to ten networked users, available at popular software retailers, e-tailers and direct resellers or by contacting Sage Software at 888-ACT-2006 or www.act.com/estore ($229.99 MSRP, upgrade $149.95 MSRP)

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Sage CRM Solutions offer Freedom of Choice for SMBs

London, UK ?October 19, 2005 ?The Sage Group, plc (London: SGE) announced today the launch of a new global CRM organization to drive the company? market-leading CRM business around the world. The company also announced new branding that will be adopted worldwide for its comprehensive line of CRM products, underscoring the strength of the company? leadership in providing CRM software to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Worldwide, Sage serves more than 2.5 million registered users and 38,000 corporate customers of its ACT!, Sage CRM, and SalesLogix products.

The new global CRM strategy is a first for Sage, whose business has been built on the strength of regionally-based products that are designed to meet the local needs of SMBs.

Sage Group Chief Executive Paul Walker stated that the creation of a global CRM organization is an important step in Sage? long-term growth, allowing it to fully capitalize within the CRM market on its existing advantages in products, local service capabilities, and customer base.

?o other vendor today reaches small and medium-sized businesses with the breadth of product selection that Sage offers,?said Mr. Walker. ?RM is not bound by the taxation and jurisdictional necessities of accounting products, enabling it to cross boundaries easily. We have a unique opportunity to use our leading global position, expertise, and resources to bring effective CRM solutions to SMBs worldwide.?/p>

Dave Batt, who recently joined Sage as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global CRM heads up the new organization that includes product strategy, product research and development, and product marketing resources. Mr. Batt is a long time CRM professional, with significant experience both within industry using CRM solutions and with CRM vendors including Microsoft, Oracle, and Siebel.

?age is unique in its strict focus on business applications for SMBs,?said Batt. ?hat makes Sage people true SMB experts. Our expertise and global presence with leading share of business applications in so many markets makes Sage the player to emulate. It? my goal to drive our existing leadership even further with a comprehensive approach that builds the individual strengths of Sage CRM products into a stronger whole for our customers around the world.?/p>

The Sage CRM products, each of which was named as a market leader at the CRM Magazine 2005 Market Leaders Awards, will be delivered with a new common branding program that includes:

Sage CRM Solutions, and the tag line Freedom of Choice, branding for the entire family of Sage CRM products; http://www.sagecrmsolutions.com

ACT! by Sage, customer and contact management for individuals, small businesses and business workgroups; the innovative product that created the CRM category with its launch in 1987; winner of the CRM Magazine Market Leader Award in Sales Force Automation, and Customer Interaction Solutions 2005 Product of the Year; http://www.act.com
Sage CRM, configurable, full suite CRM for small and medium-sized businesses, winner of a 2005 CRMGuru Summit Award and a ContactCenterWorld Member ? Choice Award for Best Global CRM; http://na.sagecrm.com
SageCRM.com, the only on-line CRM service that is also available for on-premises deployment; outranking all evaluated hosted CRM services and named Editor? Choice in the Network Computing September 1, 2005 comparative review of the leading hosted CRM services; http://na.sagecrm.com
Sage CRM SalesLogix, customizable, full suite CRM for small and medium-sized businesses and small enterprises, named by Gartner Inc. along with ACT! as market share leader for small businesses 1. http://www.saleslogix.com

CRM industry analyst Sheryl Kingstone with The Yankee Group comments that Sage? portfolio puts the company in a unique position. ?RM is rapidly becoming a key ingredient of SMB operations,?said Kingstone. ?eveloping a coordinated global approach to CRM puts Sage in a better position to capitalize on its global reach and seasoned portfolio to serve SMBs with different options.?/p>

Sage CRM Solutions offer attributes that are especially designed for SMBs, providing them with significant freedom of choice, including migration opportunities to more advanced functionality in the family as business needs grow, choice in hosted and on-premises CRM, individual user and workgroup capabilities, integration with mobile devices, integration with accounting, a global channel of CRM solution providers, and an extended channel of more than 22,000 reseller partners with expertise in the business management processes that CRM interfaces with.

The announcement of the global CRM initiatives coincides with announcements of the impending launch of SageCRM.com in the UK and France, and Sage CRM in Germany and Spain. Sage CRM and SageCRM.com are the latest additions to the Sage CRM Solutions global family of products, supporting the company? strategy of providing SMBs with broad choice in their business application selections. Sage CRM is offered for both on-premises and online use, enabling businesses to choose the deployment form they require. The product is written with a Web architecture and provides two way integration to back office accounting.

?hree of the most important aspects that SMBs look for in business applications are selection, integration, and local service,?said Denis Pombriant, Managing Principal of CRM industry analyst firm Beagle Research. ?age? portfolio, integration strategy, and extensive partner channel provide them with key competitive advantages. Sage? strategy correlates extremely well with SMB needs.?/p>

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Number-one selling contact and customer management solution featured alongside the standard in relationship sales training programs

Scottsdale, Ariz. – November 29, 2005 – Sage Software today announced a partnership with Dale Carnegie Training to promote Dale Carnegie sales coaching sessions and the ACT! by Sage contact and customer management solution during nationwide Dale Carnegie training programs and ACT! Webinars. The partnership links more than 160 Dale Carnegie Training centers and over 2700 trainers and consultants with regional ACT! Certified Consultants to identify sales training synergies and offer advanced ACT! product training. Additionally, ACT! will be represented at Dale Carnegie Training’s International convention in December with nearly 1000 trainers, salespeople and franchisees in attendance.

“Developing and maintaining high-value relationships is a fundamental element of Dale Carnegie Training courses,” explained Piera Palazzolo, senior vice president of marketing for Dale Carnegie Training. “ACT! expertly embodies these concepts and empowers our seminar and training course participants by combining customer information and productivity tools in one easy-to-use sales automation system.”

The ACT! and Dale Carnegie Training partnership focuses on helping sales professionals, managers, directors, vice presidents and business owners improve individual or team sales performance. Concepts covered in the Dale Carnegie Training curriculum that are complemented by ACT! sales process capabilities include setting sales strategies, managing prospects and customers and prioritizing daily activities.

“ACT! focuses on enabling people to realize their highest levels of sales effectiveness,” said Joe Bergera, ACT! senior vice president and general manager for Sage Software. “Dale Carnegie Training has similarly encouraged its clients to attain their highest levels of success through its leadership and business training programs. Combined, our unique offerings can deliver truly significant and measurable value for today’s selling professionals.”

ACT! by Sage
ACT! is the preferred choice of over 2.5 million users and more than 30,000 corporate accounts to organize, access and manage their comprehensive customer details in a single, integrated solution. ACT! offers powerful capabilities to help companies improve productivity and increase sales.The feature-rich ACT! toolset allows professionals, sales teams and corporate workgroups to:

Work with easy-to-use and time-tested features that can be customized for individual and industry-specific preferences;
Increase productivity by efficiently managing appointments, activities, documents, customer communications and campaigns and notes/histories;
Improve bottom-line results by automating and customizing key aspects of the sales cycle to provide better forecasting and opportunity tracking;
Access data quickly using keyword searches, detailed views and list sorting;
Organize data efficiently using group, sub-group and company categories; and
Collaborate with team members using Web or Windows permission-based access to customer information, team calendars and company resources.
ACT! by Sage is part of Sage CRM Solutions, the only family of CRM products designed specifically for the needs of small and mid-sized businesses that also includes Sage CRM, SageCRM.com and Sage CRM SalesLogix. For more details, visit www.sagecrmsolutions.com or call (888) 855-5222.

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Seamless online and offline contact and customer management solution enables shorter sales cycles, higher close rates and better sales force productivity

Scottsdale, Ariz. ?January 3, 2006 ?Sage Software today announced availability of the new ACT! by Sage Premium for Web 2006 contact and customer management solution. ACT! Premium for Web can be installed on a company server and deployed easily to remote and on-premises users, with no end-user client software installation required, to provide real-time Web access to centralized customer information. ACT! Premium for Web can also be used in conjunction with ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 to enable dual-use environments that equip sales teams with online and offline access to ACT! data.

New ACT! Premium for Web 2006 features include customizable opportunity fields, custom user permissions, en masse contact access settings and scheduled automatic database backup, among others.

Strong user adoption of ACT! Premium products has helped increase registered ACT! corporate accounts to over 30,000, significantly outpacing market alternatives.

?CT! Premium for Web offers a highly favorable total cost of ownership that is driving strong market demand for the solution,?explained Joe Bergera, ACT! senior vice president and general manager for Sage Software . ?owever, we are most excited about our users?double-digit productivity improvements and quick return on investment.?/p>

ACT! Premium for Web is ideal for small businesses, functionally-defined workgroups and divisions of larger organizations that want to implement Web-based sales force automation without recurring monthly user fees. Balmar, Inc., a Virginia-based printing company, implemented ACT! Premium for Web for 30 traveling sales representatives, creating an additional 10 percent of selling time per week for the organization.

?ach of our reps have added two additional business appointments per week. We have closed accounts that we previously did not have time to focus on and these have turned out to be valuable accounts,?said Patrick Peyton, technical director for Balmar, Inc.

End-User Web Benefits

#1 selling feature set ?ACT! Premium for Web provides a feature set similar to the ACT! Windows product used by more than 2.5 million individuals worldwide.
Anytime, anywhere data access ?Remote, traveling and office users can access, update and share centralized data with no synchronization required.
Robust offline client ?ACT! Premium for Workgroups can be used as a full-featured offline client 1 to perform all Web functions in the Windows environment and synchronize ACT! data to Palm OS ?and Pocket PC handheld devices.
User productivity ?All users can access the same ACT! features and remote users are always up to date with immediate access to product updates, layouts, and reports with no individual software updates required.
Administrator Web Benefits

Easy rollout ?Central server installation eliminates the need for end-user client installation, configuration and set-up.
Centralized administration ?Layouts and reports can be created once and accessed by all Web and Windows users.
Custom user permissions ?Set per-user ability to access, add, delete and export data to the centralized server.
Reduced training and support time ?Similar, easy-to-use Web and Windows environments enable users to get up and running quickly.
Data secured behind firewall ?On-premises server installation ensures data remains in-house and securely behind company firewall.
ACT! Premium for Web is available for $399.99 (upgrade $259.95) by phoning 888-855-5222 or by locating an ACT! Certified Consultant at www.act.com/certifiedconsultants. ACT! Premium for Workgroups is also available for $399.99 (upgrade $259.95).

ACT! by Sage
ACT! offers powerful contact and customer management capabilities to help companies improve productivity and increase sales.ACT! by Sage is part of Sage CRM Solutions, the only family of CRM products designed specifically for the needs of small and mid-sized businesses that also includes Sage CRM, SageCRM.com and Sage CRM SalesLogix. For more details, visit www.sagecrmsolutions.com or call 888-855-5222.

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?ioneering?contact and customer management solution noted for expanded productivity capabilities, receives honor for second straight year

Scottsdale, Ariz. ?January 25, 2006 ?/strong> Sage Software today announced that ACT! by Sage 2006 has received Small Business Computing? Excellence In Technology 2006 Award for Sales/CRM software. The publication polls its readership annually to select the ?outstanding products of the year that help small businesses increase efficiency and improve productivity.?Small Business Computing readers selected ACT! over Salesforce.com during voting for this year? awards. This is the second straight year ACT! has received the publication? product excellence honor.

?CT! has a loyal and discerning base of more than 2.5 million registered users and over 30,000 corporate accounts that helps guide our development of enhanced productivity capabilities for small and mid-sized businesses,?explained Joe Bergera, ACT! senior vice president and general manager for Sage Software . ?e are honored that many of our users consistently name ACT! as their preferred contact and customer management solution. ACT! delivers robust and flexible features at a lower total cost of ownership than most alternatives, which encourages many organizations and sales teams to implement the ACT! solution that is most ideal for their business.?

Small Business Computing editors cited ACT! as ? pioneer in the contact management field,?calling out new group and company tree view features and referencing ACT! Add-on solution capabilities that extend business productivity with specialized marketing, shipping and handheld device synchronization functions, among others.

The award continues a trend of Sage CRM Solutions being selected over market alternatives. Network Computing magazine recently named SageCRM.com its ?ditor? Choice?over Salesforce.com and others in a hosted CRM product comparison review, noting SageCRM.com? full-service capabilities and competitive pricing. Additionally, Forrester Research, Inc. reported strong performance of Sage CRM Solutions in its Forrester Wave ?Midmarket Sales Force Automation Q4 2005 report, referencing that over 25% of technology decision makers at U.S. small and mid-sized businesses begin by considering an ACT! by Sage solution 1 when assessing sales force automation.

ACT! by Sage Product Family

ACT! is the preferred choice of over 2.5 million registered users and more than 30,000 corporate customers to organize, access and manage their critical customer information. ACT! delivers powerful contact and customer management capabilities with flexible deployment options to help improve productivity and increase sales.

ACT! by Sage 2006 ? for individuals and small teams of up to ten networked users, available at popular software retailers, e-tailers and direct resellers or by contacting Sage Software at 888-ACT-2006 or www.act.com/estore ($229.99 MSRP, upgrade $149.95 MSRP).

ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 ? for workgroups of up to 50 networked users 2 available by contacting ACT! Corporate Sales at 888-855-5222 and from more than 600 ACT! Certified Consultants located at www.act.com/certifiedconsultants. ($399.99 MSRP, upgrade $259.95 MSRP).

ACT! by Sage Premium for Web 2006 ? for remote, traveling and on-premise user access to real-time and centralized data, available by contacting ACT! Corporate Sales at 888-855-5222 ($399.99 MSRP, upgrade $259.95 MSRP).

ACT! Handheld Links ?/strong> ACT! 2006 and ACT! Premium for Workgroups 2006 each include ACT! Link for Palm OS and ACT! Link for Pocket PC to synchronize data with many popular handheld devices.

ACT! Accounting Links ?/strong> ACT! 2006 and ACT! Premium for Workgroups 2006 offer the capability to integrate with Sage BusinessWorks 50 Accounting, Peachtree by Sage, Simply Accounting by Sage and QuickBooks Pro/Premier.

ACT! Add-on Solutions ? ACT! Add-on solutions extend database functionality to help businesses run more cost efficiently. 3 A complete list of ACT! Add-on solutions and pricing is available at www.actsolutions.com . Developers interested in the ACT! Add-on Partner Program are encouraged to visit www.act.com/partners/addonpartners.

ACT! by Sage is part of Sage CRM Solutions, the only family of CRM products designed specifically for the needs of small and mid-sized businesses that also includes Sage CRM, SageCRM.com and Sage CRM SalesLogix. For more details, visit www.sagecrmsolutions.com or call 888-855-5222.

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Customized contact and customer management solution prompts targeted marketing activities; increases employee productivity and prospect-to-customer conversions

Scottsdale, Ariz. – February 27, 2006 – Sage Software today announced that Homestead Mortgage, a Seattle-based mortgage banking firm, has streamlined its marketing processes and increased sales team efficiency using ACT! by Sage. Since implementing the solution in August 2005, Homestead Mortgage has closed an additional 2 loans each month per loan officer.

“The mortgage banking business is very process driven and our associates are consistently interacting with customers at all stages of the sales pipeline. We needed a system that would map to our business needs without forcing us to change our current sales strategies and respective processes,” said Grant Eckstrom, IT Director/CIO, Homestead Mortgage. “With ACT!, all of our sales associates have instant access to customer data, allowing them to cater to each customer’s unique needs and ultimately close more loans.”

Tailored solution maps critical data to essential business processes

After evaluating several alternative solutions, Homestead Mortgage implemented a customized version of ACT! to manage its customer data and marketing campaigns. Thirty-three sales associates use ACT! to build and manage their prospect pipelines and to help cultivate positive relationships with prospects and customers. Each ACT! customer field is designed to help agents efficiently manage leads and prioritize daily activities in order to close the maximum amount of loans while maintaining high customer satisfaction rates.

ACT! tracks critical loan data – such as lock expiration dates, loan amounts, rates and rebates – for Homestead’s three branch locations. All data is stored in a centralized ACT! database for real-time access. The company’s loan originating system is also integrated with ACT! to provide associates better insight into each customer’s transaction history.

Homestead manages targeted marketing activities based on each stage of the sales process and by specific loan characteristics. An associate can target all prospects who have inquired about purchasing a second mortgage and proactively distribute marketing materials about fixed and variable rate second mortgages, or information on how to take out a home equity line of credit. The target marketing efforts managed through ACT! have helped Homestead increase its prospect-to-customer conversion rate.

ACT! by Sage
ACT! by Sage is the preferred choice of over 2.5 million users to organize, access and manage their comprehensive customer details in a single, integrated solution. ACT! offers a powerful toolset to help companies, such as Homestead Mortgage, improve productivity and increase sales. The feature-rich ACT! toolset allows professionals, sales teams and corporate workgroups to:

Work with easy-to-use and time-tested features that can be customized for individual and industry-specific preferences;
Increase productivity by efficiently managing appointments, activities, documents, customer communications and campaigns and notes/histories;
Improve bottom-line results by automating and customizing key aspects of the sales cycle to provide better forecasting and opportunity tracking;
Access data quickly using keyword searches, detailed views and list sorting;
Organize data efficiently using group, sub-group and company categories; and
Collaborate with team members using Web or Windows permission-based access to customer information, team calendars and company resources.
ACT! by Sage 2006 – for individuals and small teams of up to ten networked users, available at popular software retailers, e-tailers and direct resellers or by contacting Sage Software at 888-ACT-2006 or www.act.com/estore ($229.99 MSRP, upgrade $149.95 MSRP)

ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 – for workgroups of up to 50 networked users 1 is available by contacting ACT! Corporate Licensing at 888-855-5222 and from more than 600 ACT! Certified Consultants located at www.act.com/certifiedconsultants ($399.99 MSRP, upgrade $259.95 MSRP)

ACT! by Sage is part of Sage CRM Solutions, the only family of CRM products designed specifically for the needs of small and medium-sized businesses that also includes Sage CRM, SageCRM.com and Sage CRM SalesLogix. For more details, visit www.sagecrmsolutions.com or call (800) 643-6400.

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New ACT! product enables the power and convenience of ACT! for individuals and mobile sales teams including easy data access and entry, custom layout and opportunity tracking

Scottsdale, Ariz. ?March 13, 2006 ?/strong> Sage Software announced today the new ACT! for Palm OS 2006 product for use as a mobile productivity tool with the ACT! by Sage 2006 and ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 contact and customer management solutions. ACT! for Palm OS operates as a native application on an individual? Palm OS handheld device to enable access, adding and updating of pre-defined and custom data fields, notes and history, activities, calendar information and sales opportunities. Users can also set up a snapshot view of their ten most regularly accessed data fields and view their most critical information by color code prioritization.

?CT! for Palm OS was designed with on-the-go sales professionals in mind,?explained Larry Ritter, vice president of ACT! product management for Sage Software . ?or sales professionals, having valuable customer details always at hand, whether in the office or while traveling, is a business necessity. Enabling comprehensive ACT! functionality for the versatile Palm OS handheld device provides a valuable mobility option for those who rely on quick data access to drive their business relationships.?/p>

Critical Customer Information Anytime, Anywhere

ACT! for Palm OS delivers key capabilities to the handheld device that many ACT! desktop users rely on to easily access customer information and improve their productivity including a linked calendar and task list, the ability to go directly to a contact record from a scheduled appointment, and the ability to view every customer interaction from the contact record.

Additionally, ACT! for Palm OS allows individuals and mobile sales professionals to:

Synchronize complete ACT! information with Palm OS handhelds and map more than 50 pre-defined ACT! fields and up to 15 custom fields to the device;
Use sales management features to enter new opportunities on the device;
Use the Opportunity List View to read and filter current opportunities on the device, as well as select and add products from existing product lists to an opportunity;
View Group and Company membership information on the devicewhether contacts were manually added or dynamically added based on defined criteria;
Schedule activities from the device using custom activity types pre-defined in the ACT! desktop product;
Track time spent on business activities including calls, meetings and to-dos;
Save time entering data on the device by adding multiple contacts to a note or history from the desktop or from the device;
Add, update and delete secondary contacts from the device to associate related contacts with a main contact.
ACT! for Palm OS is available for $99.99 (upgrade $69.95) by phoning ( 866) 333-0990 for individual users, ( 866) 421-7752 for five or more users or by locating an ACT! Certified Consultant at www.act.com/certifiedconsultants. ACT! 2006 is available for $229.99 (upgrade $ 149.95) and ACT! Premium for Workgroups 2006 is available for $399.99 (upgrade $259.95).

ACT! by Sage
ACT! is the preferred choice of over 2.5 million registered users and more than 32,000 corporate customers to organize, access and manage their critical customer information. ACT! delivers powerful contact and customer management capabilities with flexible deployment options to help improve productivity and increase sales.

ACT! by Sage is part of Sage CRM Solutions, the only family of CRM products designed specifically for the needs of small and mid-sized businesses that also includes Sage CRM, SageCRM.com and Sage CRM SalesLogix. For more details, visit www.sagecrmsolutions.com or call (888) 855-5222.

Important Note: ACT! for Palm OS does not enforce certain preferences and permissions defined in ACT!, including the ?llow history editing?preference, the ?llow notes editing?preference, the ?elete Records?user permission, and the ?llow editing?field definition. As a result, ACT! for Palm OS users may edit contact history, edit contact notes, delete records, and edit read-only fields and these changes will be reflected in ACT! after the next two-way synchronization.

Certain field data types may not map to ACT! for Palm OS including memo and picture fields.
All fields in the custom field view are read only.
ACT! for Palm OS users may not add, update or delete products in the opportunity product list from the device. New products must be added in the Windows product.
Companies and Groups may not be added, updated or deleted on the device. Group or Company membership may be updated on the device. A Group or Company membership will not display if one or more of the fields used in the Group or Company dynamic membership rules is not included in the user? sync set.
ACT! for Palm OS users may not add, update or delete custom activity types from the device. Custom activity types must be added in the Windows product.
ACT! for Palm OS users do not have the option to limit an update to a single contact. Any change to shared notes or history that is made on the device goes to all shared contacts.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Blog

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BlackBerry? Palm OS? Pocket PC and Web access methods enable ACT! capabilities virtually everywhere millions of users and thousands of corporate customers need

Scottsdale, Ariz. – March 20, 2006 – Sage Software today detailed a diverse set of mobile and Web access options for use with the ACT! by Sage 2006 and ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 contact and customer management solutions, that enable ACT! functionality for use on handheld devices and remote access. Data synchronization and key ACT! features are available for individual and workgroup use with BlackBerry, Palm OS and Pocket PC handheld devices. Additionally, ACT! Premium for Web enables real-time Web access to centralized data that can be easily deployed for both remote and on-premises users.

Sage Software, last week, introduced ACT! for Palm OS 2006, its latest ACT! mobile solution (see separate 3/13/06 “ACT! for Palm OS 2006 Delivers Comprehensive Contact Management Functionality” press release for additional details).

“Many industry observers indicate that a significant portion of business professionals want their valuable customer data to be portable,” explained Joe Bergera, ACT! senior vice president and general manager for Sage Software . “From individual entrepreneurs wearing many hats, to on-the-go professionals and sales teams, the need for anytime, everywhere customer information has become essential for building and maintaining strong business relationships. As such, we continue to fortify the ACT! product family with versatile handheld device and Web access options to help our customers succeed.”

According to a Mobile Application Adoption Leaps Forward report published by Forrester Research (Aug. 2005), “companies are adopting mobile applications faster than planned because of advances in technology and increased competitive pressure.” Forrester further notes that “mobility will continue to penetrate even deeper into business applications; and IT will start thinking of mobility not as a new and emerging technology, but as an integral part of the IT infrastructure.”

An additional report The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket Sales Force Automation, Q4 2005, Forrester Research, Inc. (Nov. 2005) indicates that over 27% of technology decision makers at U.S. small and mid-sized businesses begin by considering an ACT! by Sage solution when assessing their sales force automation needs.

ACT! “Everywhere” Users Need Critical Customer Information

A wide variety of mobile and Web access options are available for on-the-go professionals to synchronize ACT! data and enable ACT! functionality on handheld devices and from virtual office environments including:

ACT! for Palm OS – operates as a native application on an individual’s Palm OS handheld device to enable access, adding and updating of pre-defined and custom data fields, 1 notes and history, activities, calendar information and sales opportunities.

HandHeld Contact for ACT! – allows BlackBerry 7520™ handheld device users to access and manage complete ACT! databases remotely using a wireless synchronization subscription service from Sprint/Nextel.

ACT! Handheld Links – ACT! 2006 and ACT! Premium for Workgroups 2006 each include ACT! Link for Palm OS and ACT! Link for Pocket PC to synchronize data with many popular handheld devices.

ACT! Premium For Web – customer-hosted deployment that enables remote, traveling and on-premise user access to real-time, centralized ACT! data via a Web browser. 2

Terminal services/Citrix – leverages existing IT infrastructure to allow users from different locations to access the same ACT! database without the need for VPN access. 3

The ACT! by Sage family of contact and customer management solutions is available by phoning 888-855-5222 or by locating an ACT! Certified Consultant at www.act.com/certifiedconsultants.

ACT! by Sage
ACT! is the preferred choice of over 2.5 million registered users and more than 32,000 corporate customers to organize, access and manage their critical customer information. ACT! delivers powerful contact and customer management capabilities with flexible deployment options to help improve productivity and increase sales.

ACT! by Sage is part of Sage CRM Solutions, the only family of CRM products designed specifically for the needs of small and mid-sized businesses that also includes Sage CRM, SageCRM.com and Sage CRM SalesLogix. For more details, visit www.sagecrmsolutions.com or call 888-855-5222.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Blog

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