ACT! By Sage 2008 10.0 Upgrade

List Price: $169.95 Discount Price: $139.99

Features:

• Improves productivity by helping you and your team organize contact information, manage daily responsibilities, and communicate more effectively
• New interactive Dashboard with comprehensive, graphical representations of key information
• Usability enhancements to common features for improved efficiency
• Improvements to sales opportunity tracking for greater visibility
• Improvements to Group and Company management for easier tracking

Customer Reviews:

Don't waste your money! [Posted on 2007-09-04]
Save yourself time, money and a lot of frustration...don't buy or upgrade to any ACT! versions 2007 or greater. Sage has a terrible track record and doesn't deserve consideration--look at all the negative reviews of ACT 2007 Version 9! If you believe they've worked the bugs out, go ahead, but just be aware of what you're getting yourself into. For instance, here was my experience with ACT! 2007 Version 9.

I've been using ACT! software for years and have enjoyed many of the older versions. I just upgraded from ACT! 2006 Version 8 to the newer version 9 because I was told it would integrate with Microsoft Outlook 2002. I was also told the newer version was 60% faster than the older one. WRONG! and WRONG! Sage..they all must be on glue.

First, we spent hours trying to get ACT! to work with Microsoft 2002...we kept getting one error message after another and our computers kept locking up! Finally, we loaded Microsoft Outlook 2003 and it seems to be working better. But, still, a hassle. Just make sure your version of Microsoft Outlook is at least 2003.

And, second, it's slow! The newer version of ACT! is slower than the older version! And we're all on brand new Dells! It's driving us all nuts.

After hours of ACT! technical support calls (we have a 1 year contract that cost $199.00) and costly visits from our computer support person here locally, we've finally got it functioning. But, ACT! 2007 cost us over $400.00 for 3 users here at our company...that's not cheap. And when I think about all the additional time we've spent getting it to operate, it just isn't worth it.

Slow and tough install [Posted on 2007-09-20]
I have used Act since the programs came on floppy disks and have loved it. However each new version seemed to bring new challenges. In March 2007 I bought an Acer notebook with the Vista operating system and tried to install ACT 2007 version 9 and was unable to do it. I called the help desk and ended up with a very helpful techie from India who told me that version 9 was not ready for Vista and she would have to help me though the install. So with her coaching me through registry changes and reboots after over an hour I finally had ACT installed and it appeared to work. Next step was to try to upgrade my file of contacts created in ACT 2000 but no go. So after hours of fooling around which I ended up exporting a flat file from my old ACT program and importing it into ACT 2007 I finally had a working system.

Any new version of a program should be able to upgrade the data file with a few clicks. Hopefully the people at Sage have gotten their act together for the 2008 version.

And is it ever slow getting going. It takes over 3 minutes to open up the program when I first start it up. Once it is open it is ok.

If you buy ACT expect to have to spend a lot of time getting it right. Once right it works well.
Richard

Response from Sage [Posted on 2007-09-28]
I'm Dave van Toor, the North American General Manager for the CRM Solutions group at Sage Software. I've been in this role since April this year. It is interesting to me that the first two reviews we have for our version 10 release (ACT! 2008) are from people who have not upgraded to the product.

I love passionate customers. That's why I'm working with the ACT! group. The vast majority of our customers are passionately happy with their product (we know, because we talk to thousands of them each week). We are excited with the version 10, 2008 product, and the early responses form customers who have upgraded to it. Although we always strive for excellence, regrettably we don't please all our customers all the time. I'll happily speak directly with any customer who wishes to have a constructive conversation about our products or how we can help our customers be better at their jobs.

I would invite those of you that are using an old version of ACT! to make an informed decision. Upgrade to version 10 - try it - after all you have 60 days to return it (though I don't think you will).

Let me know how it goes, you can contact me via our web site.

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