Symantec Corp. is selling its popular ACT contact management tool to SalesLogix Corp., Scottsdale, Ariz.
ACT is an extremely popular contact manager that Symantec has been trying to reposition as a customer relationship management tool. The deal calls for SalesLogix to buy the ACT product line with a four-year exclusive license that includes a purchase option at the end of that term. The aggregate purchase price would be $60 million, including the royalties paid to Symantec, according to a statement on the SalesLogix Web site.
SalesLogix founder Pat Sullivan plans to demonstrate a Web-enabled version of the application this Thursday during a Webcast.
The most recent retail data from PC Data, a Reston, Va., research firm, puts ACT firmly atop the PIM segment with about 60 percent market share in revenue and 37 percent market share in units sold.
In that segment it competes with offerings from Puma Technologies, which is No. 2 in market share, according to PC Data President Ann Stephens.
But ACT faces a formidable competitor that is not measured in such numbers. Microsoft Corp. bundles Outlook, with its own contact management and scheduling features, with every copy of Microsoft Office. "Office always was a category killer," Stephens noted.
But ACT retains a huge installed base, observers said. "Outlook has hurt ACT because its scheduling functions has put the damper on it, but ACT rocks," said James Domengeaux, president of Comspace.com, a Houston VAR and an ACT user.
A spokeswoman from Symantec, Cupertino, Calif., said the company is focusing on Internet security, antivirus and other utilities.
In some ways, the move of ACT to SalesLogix represents a full circle for the PIM. Sullivan co-founded Contact Software International in 1987 and introduced ACT soon thereafter. He sold ACT to Symantec in 1993.
