ACT! Professional V8 International English Launch in EMEA

[October 2005] - Sage ACT! Professional was launched to critical acclaim in October 2005 and delivered the most significant advances since ACT!'s inception - a scalable database that works with companies as well as contacts while maintaining the usability that made ACT! the #1 best seller around the world. A year later, the product has now been upgraded to Version 8, with improvements to both the functionality and the platforms it works with (Small Business Server, Terminal Server and Citrix).

On top of some increased functionality, ACT! Professional V8 has responded to customer needs, delivering higher performance that can now be deployed on a range of different platforms. The bedding in of V7 over the last 12 months has provided Sage with a learning curve that should not be underestimated. Moving the product from a contact-centric, flat-file database to an account centric, relational database has helped reposition ACT! as a serious business tool competing with low-end CRM products at far better price/performance values. The latest release cements ACT! as a truly world-class choice.

Availability

ACT! 2006 has been available in the United States for several months. The International English version and the equivalent product for the rest of the world, ACT! Professional V8, was launched in the United Kingdom towards the end of October.

And now ACT! Professional V8 is on its way to South Africa!

Due to overwhelming demand for the new version following its UK release, the manufacture of packing for the rest of EMEA (including South Africa) has been slightly delayed with shipping to this country unlikely to take place before our annual December shutdown. This means that we can all look forward to a fast start in January when we expect stock of the new International Version to be freely available.

Upgrades

ACT! Professional V8 is being made available to all ACT! Professional and ACT! Professional for Workgroups V7 customers according to a number of options:

* With immediate effect and until 31 January 2006, registered users of ACT! Professional and ACT! Professional for Workgroups V7 throughout the EMEA region have access to the download version of the new ACT! Professional V8 software with a licence available at no cost during this period.

* Given the severe limitations and high cost of bandwidth availability faced by the majority of South African customers, we will make available an alternate method of making this FREE download upgrade available to all registered ACT! Professional and ACT! Professional for Workgroups V7 customers. With effect from 9 January until 28 February, disks only (excluding manuals) of the new version will be made available to users against proof of purchase of V7. The disks can then be used for installation of the V8 upgrade based on a licence key code that will be issued. The FREE upgrade offer based on the supply of media is strictly limited to the reseller channel, with business partners encouraged to support end users during the installation process.

* On the expiry of the FREE upgrade option and with effect from 1 March 2006, V7 customers will qualify for a special 50% discount off the RRP for upgrades until the end of May 2006. Thereafter normal upgrade pricing will apply.

Any user on ACT! 6.0 or any previous version qualifies to upgrade in the normal way.

System Requirements

Minimum Requirements: An IBM compatible computer with a 550 MHz Pentium III processor; 512 MB RAM; at least 500 MB of free disk space after Windows® has been installed; a copy of Internet Explorer version 6 or higher (this is included on the CD); an SVGA video card and monitor supported by Windows running at 800x600 pixels, with a minimum of 256 colours.

Recommended Requirements: An IBM compatible computer with a Pentium 1 GHz processor; 1GB RAM; at least 500 MB of free disk space after Windows has been installed; a copy of Internet Explorer version 6 or higher (this is included on the CD); an SVGA video card and monitor supported by Windows running at 1024x768 pixels, with a minimum of 24-bit true colour.

Operating Systems: Microsoft® Windows XP Home, Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Standard Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition.

ACT! Professional works with: Microsoft Outlook® 2000/2002/2003; Outlook Express 5.5/6.0; Eudora® 5.2/6.0, Lotus Notes 6.5; Internet Mail SMTP/POP3, Microsoft Office 2000/2002/2003, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5/6.0, Adobe® Acrobat® Reader® 5.0/6.0; Small Business Server 2003; Terminal Server; Citrix Presentation Server 3.0/4.0;

Palm OS Minimum Device Requirements: Palm OS 3.5 - 5.x, Minimum 33 MHz or higher processor, Minimum 8 MB or higher memory, Minimum 500k free memory plus 1k for each contact, Hot Sync Manager 3.5 or higher.

Pocket PC Minimum Device Requirements: Pocket PC 2000/2002/ Phone Edition (Windows CE 3.0 or higher); Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC (Windows CE 4.0 or higher) (excluding Smartphone Operating Systems), Minimum 133 MHz or higher processor, Minimum 16 MB or higher memory, Minimum 500k free memory plus 1k for each contact, Microsoft ActiveSync 3.5 or higher.

Please note that iACT! Pro v8 works with Small Business Server 2003; Terminal Server; Citrix Presentation Server 3.0/4.0



Feature List

The main new features and enhancements for ACT! Professional V8 are:

· Link Contacts and Companies quickly and easily by multi-selecting Contacts and linking them with a Company already in the database.

· Better manage contacts with Group Improvements that let you view all Group memberships for a contact in the Contact Detail View. Easily see Group relationships using the Tree View for quick, easy navigation within Groups or Companies.

· Manage meetings easily, with the ability to change activity organizers even after the meeting has been scheduled.

· Synchronize only the attachments you need because only attachments related to your selected sync set will sync, saving time and improving performance and security.

· Set expiration periods for synchronizing databases at anywhere from one to 365 days. Once a database has expired, you can sync your database one last time to the master database so you don?t lose critical information.

· Maintain data integrity in remote databases by allowing remote users to perform select administrative functions such as database backup without granting full administrative rights.

· Have the phone numbers you need, when you need them with printed ACT! calendar templates that not only tell you when the call is scheduled, but also provide the phone number - even if it wasn't listed in the appointment!

· Maximize the benefits of the e-mail client by using ACT! with Lotus Notes®. This allows you to attach inbound e-mails to ACT! contacts, create new contacts and activities from an e-mail sender, create contact histories on the contact record when sending e-mails, and much more.



The major enhancements to ACT! Professional for Workgroups include:

· Link Contacts and Companies quickly and easily by multi-selecting Contacts and linking them with a Company already in the database. If a contact is linked to a Company, the company name will display as a hyperlink in the Contact List View for quick and easy manoeuvring between Contacts and Companies.

· Better manage contacts with Group Improvements that let you view all Group memberships for a contact in the Contact Detail View. Easily see Group relationships using the Tree View for quick, easy navigation within Groups or Companies.

· Ensure up-to-date customer information with Automatic Database Synchronization and Backup. Sync and backup times can be set and managed to ensure that remote databases are synchronized to the master database and your organization has the most complete customer information at all times. Once set up, the only remote user involvement required is that their computer must be turned on at the scheduled time.

· Synchronize only the attachments you need because only attachments related to your selected sync set will sync, saving time and improving performance and security.

· Hold onto key data, even if you have forgetful employees. You can now set expiration periods for synchronizing databases at anywhere from one to 365 days. Once a database has expired, you can sync your database one last time to the master database so you don't lose critical information.

· Ensure data consistency with drop-down Lists in Opportunity fields. And new Customisable Opportunity Fields let you tailor ACT! to your customers' business.

· Easy View of Team Membership.

· Effortlessly assign contact access to individuals and teams.



What is ACT!?

ACT! is the #1 best-selling contact and customer manager in the world. With more than four million registered users and 30,000 corporate accounts standardized on ACT!, ACT! continues to be the market leader in contact and customer management. ACT! delivers multiple editions focused on assisting individuals, small businesses, workgroups and divisions of larger organizations to Make contact, Build relationships and Get results.

ACT! is rich in heritage and renowned for ease of use. ACT! has an 18-year track record of delivering products that are easy to use, customizable and affordable for the small business market place. From the main contact record, users can garner a complete picture of their relationship with the given contact. Quick access to data, Short cut keys, integration with popular e-mail packages such as Microsoft® Outlook and Lotus Notes, one-click Excel export, end-user customizable reports, layouts and templates, and the ability to sync to most PDA devices makes ACT! more user friendly than ever!

ACT! has evolved contact management contact and customer management capabilities. These capabilities entail tracking and managing complete customer information, including contact and company details, notes and histories, appointments and to-do items, communications, sales opportunities and associated documents. The ACT! Professional V8 product family includes Windows and PDA solutions so users can access critical customer information, anytime, anywhere. And ACT! integrates with popular accounting products so your organization always has a complete view of all of its customer interactions.

ACT! delivers high levels of features and a low total cost of ownership. Both ACT! Professional V8 and ACT! Professional for Workgroups V8 offer a significantly lower TCO than many comparative competitive products, including Goldmine, Maximizer and Salesforce.com.

ACT! integrates the productivity tools you use every day, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Palm OS® handheld devices, Pocket PC devices and many popular accounting products.



What can ACT! help you do?

Centralize critical customer information - ACT! is a single, central repository for critical contact and customer information captured across your business. Whether your are one-person business or fifty-person workgroup, ACT! enables you to access detailed contact and customer information, manage individual and team calendars and activities, capture all customer communications, track opportunities through the sales process, and report on overall effectiveness.

Manage Contacts at the Company level for a complete customer view - Manage your customer interactions either at the contact or company level with the Company Record feature. Now users can create company and division records, associate key contacts to those records, and view all associated Notes, Histories and Opportunities for a complete view of your relationship with that organization. By linking contacts to a Company Record, when core company information is updated such as address or Web site, it is automatically updated in each contact record as well. Once a contact is linked to a Company Record, the company name will display as a hyperlink in the Contact List View for quick and easy manoeuvring between Contacts and Company.

Utilize Contact and Company Notes and History to track every relationship detail - ACT! allows you to add unlimited date and time stamped Notes and History to a Contact or Company record to help you better track your relationship details. Share notes and histories with multiple contacts, make a change in a Note and History for one contact, and have the option to update the note for all contacts that share this note. Rich Text Formatting is available when adding detail, allowing for colours, different fonts, bullets etc. in all Notes, History and Opportunity details.

Organize Contacts into Groups based on key actionable criteria - Categorize groups of contacts such as all leads from a marketing mailing, all contacts in a province or city, or all contacts coming up for renewal this quarter. Groups can be static, or dynamic Groups in which contacts move in and out of the Group based on the criteria you specify, with no additional work. The Groups feature can accommodate up to 15 levels of hierarchy (14 subgroups) so you can segment your groups in as much detail as you like. Easily see relationships using the Tree View for quick, easy navigation. Users can view all group memberships for a contact, whether they were manually added to a Group or if they are members based on a group definition.

Track all customer communications whether they are paper, fax or e-mail based - ACT! allows you to track all of your critical contact and customer communications on the contact record for quick and easy referencing. Utilize the ACT! E-mail client or integrate with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes, to attach inbound e-mails to contacts, create new contacts and activities from an e-mail sender, and create contact histories on the contact record. You can even select from three history types based on how much detail you want recorded for each correspondence. ACT! Mail Merge allows you to correspond with multiple contacts (either via e-mail or paper correspondence) and automatically track a history on each contact record.

Stay on top of your schedule and prioritise tasks so you are more productive - There are multiple Calendar Views within ACT!, including Daily/Weekly/Monthly views, a Today View, a customisable Work Week View and a Multiple Month Mini-Calendar view that can be expanded to the entire year. Calls, meetings and to-do items can be filtered by priority, date range or user, even displaying totals for each type of activity. And, Activity Alarms will help you stay on top of all your time-sensitive deliverables.

Forecast and track Sales Opportunities for an improved bottom line - ACT! enables sales professionals to track sales opportunities from initial inquiry through to close utilizing the standard sales process or a process customized to suit their business. When working an opportunity, sales professionals can simply click follow-up and a new activity will be created automatically with the opportunity details - ensuring the prospect is managed as it moves through the process. Sales professionals and sales management will always know where they stand. They can view all sales opportunities at once or filter by Users, Estimated Close, Date, Status, Sales Stage, Amount or Probability of Close. You can track as many products as you like on each opportunity and specify product discounts and costs for each item. And, just like other areas of ACT!, opportunities can be tracked using lookups or Keyword Search so you can find information quickly.

Access and report on critical information quickly and easily - Perform a Lookup on any field, or utilize Keyword Search to quickly go to the exact location of the keyword search term. Also, perform numeric Lookups by ranges such as greater than or less than queries and save these queries for reusable searches. ACT! provides more than 40 standard reports including Phone Lists, Activity Reports, Relationship History, Sales Summaries and more or create your own using the Report Designer. Because ACT! has advanced field types such as multiple select, you can better track information that often requires more than one selection such as ID Source or Referred By, and then report accurately on that information.

Customize ACT! and capture data unique to your business for more insightful business decisions - ACT! can easily be adapted to meet your unique requirements. End-user friendly and adaptable, selling professionals can easily add, delete and edit fields and tabs with Layout Designer to meet specific needs. Field types can be designated as Date, Currency, Yes/No, Expansive Memo and Picture fields to ensure you are capturing and can report on the right type of data. Priority, Activity and History types are customisable so you can define "Billable Hours" as an activity type instead of just using "Meeting", "Call", or "To-Do".

Support remote or travelling users - ACT! supports remote users and enables travelling users to take their information with them when they are on the go. Remote users can access ACT! through a VPN, using Citrix or Terminal Services, with ACT! Professional for Web, or they can work offline and synchronize to the master database. ACT! Link for Palm OS and ACT! Link for Pocket PC enables users to take critical contact and customer information with them.

Meet the needs of your workgroup or team of users sharing data - ACT! Professional for Workgroups scales to 50+ users and offers Centralized Administration and Deployment, Advanced Contact and User Security, Advanced Opportunity Tracking, and Advanced Workgroup Functionality desired by workgroups and teams sharing contact and customer information. Specific features include silent installation for easy roll-out to end-users, automated database synchronization and backup, custom user permissions and group scheduling.