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Free Contact Management Software Reviews
I'm sorry to say there isn't much around. It has been a bit of a weak spot for Mac / OS X for ages - but things are possibly improving.
Any CRM solution for OS X needs really to co-operate with Address Book and iCal - so you can sync your stuff out to PDAs or whatever, and use them in Mail / iWork / Office 2008 etc. that are already written to work with such info in AB and iCal. If it doesn't, you end up with a closed-off app that can't easily work with you on the machine, and which then has to re-do code that already exists. Odd design constraints in earlier versions of iCal and AB made this harder - they were not very aware of other systems / apps. But this is changing in Leopard, and there are some promising things on the horizon (though none really useful solutions avail yet).
Of those out there, probably the best notional app is (in my view) Now Software's Nighthawk ( http://www.nowsoftware.com/nighthawkSubsite/index.html). It is written by a team with a solid track record of CRM development on Macs, and is apparently designed to play nice with iSync and the rest. Trouble is it doesn't yet exist - rumours of a public Beta have been out there for months, but the date keeps slipping. Could be a good thing, or signs of major problems - who knows. Realistically you'll not see anything commercially viable from them before April next year I reckon.
But waiting could be good. The other attempt we've seen is SOHO Organizer by Chronos Software. ( http://www.chronosnet.com/Products/sohoorganizer.html) In description it does the business - iSync / iCal / AB compatible. But it has had a troubled development, and there is lots of grim sounding reports of trouble with the app on the net. The developers are not very kind to themselves with not much disclosure and (at least last time a looked) a restrictive demo / preview policy (you get one trial period, and that's it, for ever! Even if they bring out a major version number change). My personal experience is that they tell a much better marketing story than they deliver in software - but I've steered clear of the app for a long time now (after a seriously bad experience) but who knows, they might well have caught up with their ambitions by now.
There are many others about that are really central web-based systems - which is fine provided you don't want to use Mail / AB / iCal or sync any of this to your phone / PDA / .Mac or whatever.
So, nothing much going on now. But ever hopeful...
If anyone knows more / other stuff - would be good to know about. We're still travelling hopefully.
Message was edited by: Gavin Lawrie - correct typo
Any CRM solution for OS X needs really to co-operate with Address Book and iCal - so you can sync your stuff out to PDAs or whatever, and use them in Mail / iWork / Office 2008 etc. that are already written to work with such info in AB and iCal. If it doesn't, you end up with a closed-off app that can't easily work with you on the machine, and which then has to re-do code that already exists. Odd design constraints in earlier versions of iCal and AB made this harder - they were not very aware of other systems / apps. But this is changing in Leopard, and there are some promising things on the horizon (though none really useful solutions avail yet).
Of those out there, probably the best notional app is (in my view) Now Software's Nighthawk ( http://www.nowsoftware.com/nighthawkSubsite/index.html). It is written by a team with a solid track record of CRM development on Macs, and is apparently designed to play nice with iSync and the rest. Trouble is it doesn't yet exist - rumours of a public Beta have been out there for months, but the date keeps slipping. Could be a good thing, or signs of major problems - who knows. Realistically you'll not see anything commercially viable from them before April next year I reckon.
But waiting could be good. The other attempt we've seen is SOHO Organizer by Chronos Software. ( http://www.chronosnet.com/Products/sohoorganizer.html) In description it does the business - iSync / iCal / AB compatible. But it has had a troubled development, and there is lots of grim sounding reports of trouble with the app on the net. The developers are not very kind to themselves with not much disclosure and (at least last time a looked) a restrictive demo / preview policy (you get one trial period, and that's it, for ever! Even if they bring out a major version number change). My personal experience is that they tell a much better marketing story than they deliver in software - but I've steered clear of the app for a long time now (after a seriously bad experience) but who knows, they might well have caught up with their ambitions by now.
There are many others about that are really central web-based systems - which is fine provided you don't want to use Mail / AB / iCal or sync any of this to your phone / PDA / .Mac or whatever.
So, nothing much going on now. But ever hopeful...
If anyone knows more / other stuff - would be good to know about. We're still travelling hopefully.
Message was edited by: Gavin Lawrie - correct typo
Free Contact Management Software
Nov 26, 2007 5:10 PM