What am I doing these days? Synchronizing Outlook!

These days I am pretty busy creating a new version of SprinxCRM OutlookSync. There are 450 millions of Office users around the world and I assume a lot of them are using Microsoft Outlook.

To start - don't take me wrong, I think Outlook is a great product and I really like it. But it is not a CRM. Once again - Outlook is not a CRM.

I hear you to disagree with me and I understand there are plenty of people using Outlook as a CRM, but let me quote SearchCRM:

"Again, without knowing more about your situation, this can be a very effective approach -- especially for a very small (3-5) group of users with no remote (disconnected) requirements. But BE CAREFUL, because you may find that you quickly exceed the capability of Outlook to scale to your requirements. Sure, you will find work-arounds, but 1-2 years later you will likely end-up with a disjointed system, unhappy users, and poor quality data. More than likely, your users will simply stop using the application when it becomes too kludgy" (http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/answer/Using-MS-Outlook/Exchange-for-CRM)

What I am trying to achieve with OutlookSync is to connect Outlook with SprinxCRM and bring those CRM benefits to the Outlook users.

The benefits:

• you will be able to attach an appointment to a company or person so you would know who you will speak to or where to go for the appointment as you have the address of the firm in the CRM
• send and received emails will be automatically uploaded to CRM and categorized to the person you are emailing with. For example, if you would receive email from Joe Doe , this email will be automatically categorized to Joe Doe in your CRM.
• when planning future activities with your business opportunity, those tasks will appear in Outlook as well so you will not miss them. Even better, if you keep your Outlook synchronized with your mobile phone, you can mark them done exactly at the time the are really completed for example after you call that guy or had that business lunch.
• you will never lose any data again as the copy is archived in the CRM
• you can access your Outlook data from any place as you connect to the CRM using internet or even from your mobile phone if you open the mobile CRM version on e.g. Blackberry