Which should I buy, BCM or ACT!?

[Guest]

Which is better?

 

[JoeM]

In my opinion, if you haven't started yet, don't waste your time with BCM
and its inherent frustrations.

 

[Lon Orenstein]

What are your needs, Big Toe? If you have basic needs for contact
management or sales opportunity or project management, then BCM might be
better. If you have needs for more security (like letting the little toe
see only their contacts and the middle toe only see theirs), then ACT might
be better for you.

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
www.pinpointtools.com

 

[Guest]

I'd have to say stay away from BCM. I thought it would be great but it is
very limited and Microsoft doesn't seem to understand the way businesses work
or have any desire to fix its obvious shortcomings. Plus, it is incredibly
slow.

 

[Luther]

I'd have to say stay away from BCM. I thought it would be great but it is
very limited and Microsoft doesn't seem to understand the way businesses work
or have any desire to fix its obvious shortcomings. Plus, it is incredibly
slow.






- Show quoted text -

But is ACT faster than BCM on the same machine with Outlook running?

 

[Guest]

Probably not much but the slow part was more of an afterthought. I
constantly have to fight with BCM. For example, I use a column in some views
called "assign to user." Sometimes it appears in the menus and sometimes it
doesn't. Sometimes the category column will show all of the categories to
which something is assigned and sometimes it will only show one category. If
you go to a history screen and see a bunch of emails and add a column "From"
the column will be added but the contents remain empty so you can't see who
sent the email history item. You can only assign one account to a contact,
the list just goes on and on. Sure, there is a work around for most of these
but I really prefer that my software works for me rather than me working for
my software. Combine this mess with the Vista debacle, talk about slow, and
I'm close to switching to Mac.

 

[Guest]

Okay the Mac comment was hyperbole but the fact remains that Microsoft has
totally lost its way.

 

[Guest]

Let's all lobby for Microsoft to buy ACT! from Sage and merge the two into
one fine program!!
. . .and . . .is there any OTHER alternative to these two programs?

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

Check out this alternative: www.avidian.com. In my opinion, this
alternative more gracefully integrates into Outlook's same Contact db. You
are NOT forced to manually recreate an entirely separate folder and contact
db designation. This alternative is also very Exchange friendly.

-THP

Let's all lobby for Microsoft to buy ACT! from Sage and merge the two into
one fine program!!
. . .and . . .is there any OTHER alternative to these two programs?

I'd have to say stay away from BCM. I thought it would be great but it is
very limited and Microsoft doesn't seem to understand the way businesses work

[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]

 

[Guest]

Wow Brian!! That looks like THE answer. Thank you!

1. I assume one doesn't need BCM if he uses Prophet 4.0?
2. After getting all ACT! info into Outlook, (and becoming familiar with
Prophet), it looks easy to leave ACT! behind - without any reason to use ACT!?

Check out this alternative: www.avidian.com. In my opinion, this
alternative more gracefully integrates into Outlook's same Contact db. You
are NOT forced to manually recreate an entirely separate folder and contact
db designation. This alternative is also very Exchange friendly.

-THP

Let's all lobby for Microsoft to buy ACT! from Sage and merge the two into
one fine program!!
. . .and . . .is there any OTHER alternative to these two programs?

I'd have to say stay away from BCM. I thought it would be great but it is
very limited and Microsoft doesn't seem to understand the way businesses work

[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]

Which is better?

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

Avidian's Prophet Outlook add-in provides an even more compelling reason to
leave ACT behind than BCM does in my opinion.

-THP

Wow Brian!! That looks like THE answer. Thank you!

1. I assume one doesn't need BCM if he uses Prophet 4.0?
2. After getting all ACT! info into Outlook, (and becoming familiar with
Prophet), it looks easy to leave ACT! behind - without any reason to use ACT!?

Check out this alternative: www.avidian.com. In my opinion, this
alternative more gracefully integrates into Outlook's same Contact db. You

[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]

 

[Blue Arrow]

Oh, there is Maximizer and Goldmine too.

Let's all lobby for Microsoft to buy ACT! from Sage and merge the two into
one fine program!!
. . .and . . .is there any OTHER alternative to these two programs?

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

Neither Maximizer nor Goldmine are "Outlook-Centric."

-THP

Oh, there is Maximizer and Goldmine too.

Let's all lobby for Microsoft to buy ACT! from Sage and merge the two into
one fine program!!

[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]

 

[Guest]

Hi Tim:
I only have Outlook installed, not BCM. My question was: Should I just
install Prophet to work with Outlook, and not install BCM? I think the answer
is “correctâ€, but just wanted to make sure.
Thank You.

Avidian's Prophet Outlook add-in provides an even more compelling reason to
leave ACT behind than BCM does in my opinion.

-THP

Wow Brian!! That looks like THE answer. Thank you!

1. I assume one doesn't need BCM if he uses Prophet 4.0?
2. After getting all ACT! info into Outlook, (and becoming familiar with
Prophet), it looks easy to leave ACT! behind - without any reason to use ACT!?

Check out this alternative: www.avidian.com. In my opinion, this
alternative more gracefully integrates into Outlook's same Contact db. You

[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]

Which is better?