Best Releases ACT! for Palm OS Handhelds

Posted By: Ryan Wednesday, November 20, 2002 11:53:15 AM

Best Software has announced ACT! for Palm OS handhelds. From a single application on the device, individuals as well as sales teams can access notes, histories and appointments for each contact record, view custom and user defined fields from their ACT! desktop, and manage sales opportunities.

"ACT! for Palm OS offers significant new capabilities to mobile business and sales professionals for whom conventional look-up of PIM data on mobile device is not enough," said ACT! General Manager Greg Head. "As our four million individual users and over 12,000 corporate customers already know, the benefit of contact management with ACT! - over PIMs like Outlook® and the Palm OS address book - is that every call, meeting, note, or sales opportunity is integrated with the contact. ACT! for Palm brings the richness and power of contact management to the Palm OS."

ACT! for Palm OS enables individuals to access their complete customer information, even while on the road, including contact, calendar and to-do items, which are all integrated at the contact level. For example, from the daily view, users can click on a calendar appointment and go to the contact record to review recent notes and histories prior to a meeting. It also has drop-down menus and pop-up lists, minimizing the need to type or use Graffiti.

With ACT! for Palm OS, users can:

Access contact and activity information instantly.
Access pre-defined and custom fields from ACT! on a handheld.
View and enter time stamped notes and histories.
Manage calendars with ease.
Work with data at the Group level.
Manage sales opportunities from a handheld.

ACT! for Palm OS ships with ACT! Express, a limited version of ACT! for Windows that includes a contact database, built-in calendar, word processor and report generator. For existing ACT! users, the product integrates with ACT! 6.0. ACT! for Palm OS can be run on any Palm Powered™ handheld running Palm OS versions 3.5, 4.0 and 4.1.

"The 24 million users of Palm Powered handhelds actively search for the latest applications they rely on to extend the functionality of their devices and we have seen double digit growth in the demand for such applications," said Larry Berkin, director of developer marketing for PalmSource, Inc. "ACT! for Palm Powered handhelds demonstrates the strength of the Palm OS and is indicative of a world class application that will continue to leverage that growth."

Availability and Pricing
ACT! for Palm OS is available in North America today with promotional pricing online at www.act.com/estore. The product will be available in North America through software retailers including CompUSA, Staples, BestBuy, Office Dept, Micro Center, Fry's, CDW, and Circuit City in early December. The suggested retail price is $79.95US with a $10.00US mail-in rebate for existing ACT! 6.0 users. Volume licensing is also available for companies wanting 10 licenses or more by calling 1-888-855-5222. ACT! for Palm is available in the Asia Pacific region today as well.

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TSC @ 11/20/2002 1:29:13 PM #

This product looks good, but be aware that telephony, e-mail,beaming features and OS 5 are not supported.

ACT is obsolete

Gekko @ 11/20/2002 1:54:28 PM #

Palm Desktop and Outlook have made ACT, Franklin-Covey, and Day-Timer obsolete. No one buys buggy-whips anymore either. These companies are striving hard to stay relevant but their products are superfluous.

RE: ACT is obsolete

Gepeto- @ 11/20/2002 3:17:20 PM #

AMEN!

DAMN I hate ACT!....DAMN I hate it...

RE: ACT is obsolete

Zippy @ 11/20/2002 6:26:08 PM #

Obsolete? Outlook was obsolete the day it came out. Outlook is a lame and feeble knockoff of ACT! ACT! was around long before the MS abortion Outlook came out.

Act! is a sophisticated contact manager and it is far from obsolete. Obviously, you have no need for managing alot of contacts and sales prospects, your opinion would be very different if you needed to do that.

You probably have 3 contacts in your database: mom, dad and sis. In which case Outlook is fabulous for handling all three, hopefully without loosing data too often.

;-)

RE: ACT is obsolete

Gekko @ 11/20/2002 6:59:36 PM #

>"Obviously, you have no need for managing alot of contacts and sales prospects, your opinion would be very different if you needed to do that. You probably have 3 contacts in your database: mom, dad and sis. In which case Outlook is fabulous for handling all three, hopefully without loosing data too often."

Hey "Zippy" - I'm in professional sales, I have about 2,000 contacts in my Address Book, and I guarantee you that my W-2 total is a MULTIPLE of yours.

Huge and clumsy comes to the Palm!

ardee @ 11/20/2002 3:22:12 PM #

Not content with a huge and clumsy application for Windows, they have now brought it to the (formerly) small and elegant Palm OS.

RE: Huge and clumsy comes to the Palm!

one4thegipper @ 11/22/2002 12:20:31 PM #

While the user interface on the Palm is not the most attractive, it does present all of the information from ACT! that I would like to have quick access to on my handheld. As far as size goes, now that my data has been moved out of the traditional Palm apps (Address, Calendar, To Do, and Memo) and into ACT!, the size and record comparison is as follows:

Palm Apps: 323k, 0 records
ACT!: 464k, 779 records

With all of the records now in ACT! and only being ~150k larger than the empty Palm Apps, I wouldn't consider ACT! huge.

Ultimately, it boils down to user preference. I've been using ACT! since 1996 and find that it suits my needs best. Now that I can easily sync all of my ACT! data to my Palm, it's even better for me.

Rich

Act! for Palm OS not bad

jazz2000 @ 11/20/2002 4:21:44 PM #

I have recieved my copy of Act! for Palm OS. Nice app! I have no need for telephony, e-mail, beaming features or OS 5 support. This app allows me to carry all of my Act! info with me at all times. Act! blows away Outlook, etc. when it comes to serious contact management (mid-market). If all your doing is e-mail, basic contact info and notes try Act! Express (shipped free with my copy of Act! for Palm OS).

RE: Act! for Palm OS not bad

mtt @ 11/20/2002 5:45:09 PM #

Tell me about the Act Express program... I have Act 2000, don't love it, don't use a lot of its features, and am shopping around for a contact manager that lets me record history, search easily, do some grouping & catagorizing, and above all, synchs well with Palm. Act link has always been a little bit flaky for me, especially with advanced datebook apps on the Palm.

MTT

RE: Act! for Palm OS not bad

beevee @ 11/21/2002 6:34:37 AM #

How bizarre that this should come up on PIC just when I was looking for a way to import come contacts into my Palm without using the PalmACT! program. I downloaded it a while ago and tried it and deleted it immediately. It's almost certainly great for folk who don't already have a bunch of stuff on their Palms and are fine about working within ACT! for everything, but otherwise it's a nightmare. So... Can anyone tell me how to export some addresses from ACT! and import them into my Palm's Addressbook without too much effort?

RE: Act! for Palm OS not bad

beevee @ 11/21/2002 7:03:53 AM #

It's okay. I should have RTFMed before asking, sorry for wasting anyone's time. It's not exactly difficult, although our system has three lines for address, plus city, postcode, country. Any ideas on how to get those three lines down to the one longer line that Palm allows?

RE: Act! for Palm OS not bad

mashby @ 11/22/2002 10:43:12 AM #

Act is a great application for those that need to track activity with their customers. I've been using it since version 2.0 back in windows 3.11 days and Act has come a long way since then.

Most people don't need the methodology that Act uses and for them Outlook, or the Palm Desktop work just fine. But, for some, the way in which Act tracks contacts and your activities with them is a very cool feature and one that is not easily duplicated by other Contact Managers.

In other words, to each his own. If you like Outlook, good for you. If you like Act, that's great too. Arguing about this is no different than telling someone that their wrench is no good because you use a hammer. Different tools for different needs.

Michael T. Ashby
Director
InterPUG
http://www.interpug.com

RE: Act! for Palm OS not bad

Zippy @ 11/22/2002 11:22:06 PM #

Thanks for a well considered post.

I bet your W-2 is a multiple of Geeko's above to boot!

Act for Palm

soupy @ 11/21/2002 6:46:50 PM #

I bought this product only to find out it's not compatible with os v5.0 and no date for an upgrade was offered.

The program will do exactly what I want on my old Palm Vx but not on the Tungsten.

Must Defend ACT

Quik_Fix @ 11/23/2002 2:37:52 AM #

I started working at my current job a year ago, and they were super gung-ho on ACT. I had no clue how to get around in it and at first it seemed clumsy. But those who haven't run a small business out of ACT don't know how awesome it can be. We can link documents in the history of an ACT database shared over a network with multiple users, so all you have to do is click on the icon next to the history blurb in the contacts information and it opens the document saved on the server... It's so damn handy.

I don't knock Outlook, but I've never been able to embrace it, either.

...In accordance with the prophecy...

Quik_Fix
quikfix@hotmail.com