Others say...

"NO Problems Yet! Except my Rebate."
I heard a lot of bad things about this product and was reluctant to purchase it because of the problems I read about. I took the leap of faith and did a fresh install with know problems. I think it is actually better than 6.0. I still need to utilize it's full potential. I use it to manage a sales territory. So far, so good.

"A Big Step in the Right Direction"
I am a professional magician, and have used ACT! for a few years to track clients, vendors, etc. The jump from ACT! 2004 to 2005 was terrible. The program used ridiculous amounts of resources, and seemed to freeze constantly. ACT! 2006 and 2007 were riddled with problems themselves, and I was very close to jumping ship and finding a new contact management program.

Enter ACT! 2008. They seem to have streamlined the program, and the results are very obvious. It load faster, uses less resources, and never freezes on me. No more worries about losing the contact info in the middle of typing it. Add the increased functionality with Outlook, and you have a GREAT CRM program.

Kevin Viner
Corporate Magician
[...]

"ACT! is back!"
I have used ACT! since the first DOS version came out over 14 years ago. Yes, ACT! had serious problems from 2005-2007, which is why I stopped recommending it after version 6. After spending 3 months living in the new ACT! 2008, I am thrilled with version 10 (2008) and can highly recommend it.

If you read the negative reviews here, most of them admit that they are talking about ACT 2005 and ACT 8. Those reviews have no bearing on the new version 10. I imagine that like most Internet review sites, the people with problems tend to make the most noise, while the majority of happy users have no reason to.

We have over 60,000 users in our ACT! 10 database. This would have taken the old ACT to it's knees. Lookups are lightning fast, and it is scalable to support many more users and contacts than the previous versions. The new version is built on a Microsoft SQL database, which is much more powerful than the old ACT proprietary database format. The few remaining annoying bugs were fixed in the 10.0.2 patch which was released on April 10, 2008.

Remember that when people have problems with software that runs fine for other people, it is generally an issue of computers (older machines without the horsepower of up-to-date units, lack of RAM, etc) and other software causing problems. I was in computer tech support for 10 years, and I can't tell you how many times problems were caused by viruses, spyware, user unfamiliarity, and issues that were related to Microsoft Windows itself, NOT the software they were having problems with.

This is the most powerful version of ACT! ever. I have switched both of my companies over to it, and have had ZERO problems. Don't be scared off by some bad anonymous reviews from people with backgrounds you are unaware of, and with axes to grind about problems from 3 years ago.



"ACT! used to be great. Now run, run, run far away"
I have used and implemented Packrat, Lotus, Maximizer, Goldmine and others and I was an early adapter of Palm handhelds. I have installed ACT! at numerous SMB's until version 7. I wanted to give ACT! another shoot with version 10 (2008) since this used to be one of the best contact management software out there. I bought 2 copies. During the upgrade on my test computers I received multiple errors just like everyone else it seems. My Outlook 2007 did not integrate the address book during the installation. I get 2 errors every time I open Outlook as well as SQL related errors. It's a real shame that the captains at Sage seem to be asleep at the wheel. I really want to love this program again but every attempt after version 6 has been futile.
Below is a summery of my ACT! experience over the years.
I have been working in the computer engineering and support field for 25 years.
I have been using ACT! for almost 20 years since ACT! for DOS (1988). I upgraded to Act! 2 for Windows (1994, Symantec), Act! 3 for Windows 95/NT (1996, Symantec), ACT! 4 (1998, Symantec) and ACT! 5/2000 (1999, Symantec). ACT! 5 was probably the best ACT software version but ACT! 2004 (a face-lift and not really much was added in terms features) including ACT! for Palm OS was also very usable. ACT! 2005 (7.0) did not support any ACT! OS for Palm and was an overall horror show for IT professionals. The geniuses at Sage decided to rewrite ACT as a Microsoft SQL application. Actions that where instantaneous in previous versions took now several seconds to almost minutes. Bugs, bugs, more bugs and incompatibilities. Drag and drop does not work anymore in daily calendar window or task window to move an appointment to a different day. Notes can not be edited by simply clicking on the note. The note has to be opened now to edit. NO MORE TAPI support to take advantage of Caller-ID.
ACT! 6 uses between 22meg and 25meg of actual "Memory Usage" (User guide suggests 64 MB of RAM). I have seen ActSage.exe use as much as 155meg actual "Memory Usage" typically around 41meg (User guide suggests min 512 MB of RAM on your system). Not only does ActSage.exe use a lot of memory but since it needs SQL to run you get additional overhead. (SQLserv.exe 40meg and others) It also seems the Palm HotSync.exe grew to over 116meg of actual "Memory Usage" during sync with ACT!, then it returned to about 8meg when sync with other apps (usual less than 2meg in stand-by). The bottom line is that Sage suggests that you need 8 times the memory when you switch from ACT! 6 to ACT! 7 or later. Hoping the software would improve I purchased 2 copies of ACT! 2006 (8.0) which I have been running on 2 test computers for about a year now. Recently I also purchase ACT! 2007 (9.0) including ACT! OS for Palm 2006 (ver 2). After 2 years of testing ACT! 2005/2006/2007 and OS for Palm 2006 and the last 45 days of using ACT! 2007 and OS for Palm 2006 as my primary contact manager on my Notebook and Desktop, I decided to go back to ACT! 6 and ACT! for Palm OS. I am loosing 45 days of data (well not really, I just have to go thru the reports for the past 45 days and inputting everything manual into my ACT! 6 database), but I can not deal with all the problems that this upgrade has given me.
I use and support hundreds of applications and I have worked with much bigger CRM packages all running on SQL, Clientele by Epicor, Microsoft CRM, Service Center now owned by HP but I have to say that ACT! 2005 thru 2008 is one of the most problematic "bloatware" software packages out there.
Sage Support: The [....] Knowledge base is completely useless and does not come up with any resolution to any of the errors I searched for.
They also offer no E-mail support and expect the customer to pay for all problems that the software causes.
In June of 2004 I send 3 different emails to corporatelicensing@act.com and never got the courtesy of a reply.
I September of 2006 I called customer support and was on hold for 38 minutes. The customer support person that finally answered gave no name and after being questioned about the long wait he replied: "Our phones are down, you will wait even longer now" and hung up.

"Act 2008 disaster"
I'm a business owner in San Diego with 8 users on Act. We've used Act since the 2003 release, this year we "upgraded" to 2008. Please, whatever you do, do not buy Act 2008. It has been a complete nightmare, I've had to reinstall at least 7 times, currently I'm on the phone with their tech support department, its been over 4 hours! Its a mess, stay away, you will lose money. Act 2006 was fairly stable, stick with that version and transfer your data to another system as soon as you can afford it.