FrontRange Updates CRM With E-Mail Integration, Synchronization

FrontRange Solutions Microsoft

GoldMine Sales and Marketing 2002, to debut next week, will make it easier for small and midsize businesses to foster collaboration between sales and support people who need CRM and colleagues who may need to team with them but don't want the full application, said Raj Patel, FrontRange CTO.

A user can now access Goldmine functions from the Outlook toolbar to do some important tasks without even opening the application, Patel said.

Resellers agreed that this is important. "We have one client with more than 900 employees, but they don't want or need 900 GoldMine seats. . . . But they do need to coordinate schedules and appointments," said Harry Landis, president of A-H Consulting, Peoria, Ill.

The product's support for the iCalendar spec means that FrontRange users can also share appointments with users of other mail systems including Lotus Notes/Domino, Eudora and others, Patel said.

E-mail integration is a hot button among CRM and contact management players. Rival SalesLogix plans better Outlook integration with its next release.

The FrontRange product also offers "one-button" synchronization to ease offline use.

The product also has enhanced organization chart talents. Users can roll up all of their account contacts pending or the history of an account by company or account name.

GoldMine Sales and Marketing 2002 retails for $495 per seat for new users, but upgrade pricing is available. GoldMine FrontOffice

users wanting to use GoldMine FrontOffice, which adds HEAT, pay an additional $3,250 per user.

CRM for the small- and midsize-business market gained validation earlier this year when Microsoft unveiled plans to dive in with its own Great Plains-built CRM offering (related story).

That move caused a ripple in the industry, sparking worries among such vendors as FrontRange, Pivotal, Onyx and SalesLogix, while also validating the perception that smaller companies need such capabilities. "On the plus side, we've raised the flag of midmarket CRM for years and no one realized this was important. . . . Microsoft has shown this is a multibillion-dollar market. . . . The negative is it does cause some confusion," said FrontRange's Patel.