Personal Information Managers Using Caller ID

This survey of Caller ID-capable PIMs accompanies my Caller ID FAQ at http://www.ainslie.org.uk/callerid.htm. If you have come here via an external link or a search engine, I recommend that you have a look at the FAQ first before looking at software. More and more PIMS are including Caller ID capability, whilst more and more Caller ID programs can integrate with the big-name PIMS.  This page gives some feel for what's available, but it's not a high priority for me. If you want more PIMS, try Yahoo's PIM directory; increasingly these products are being integrated into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions.For Caller ID software, or non-Windows PIMS, see the links at the bottom of this page.

Act!
Vendor : Best Software (part of Sage)
Website: http://www.act.com/
Technical support groups: http://www.act.com/community/usergroups
Price: ~£109 + VAT
The archetypal PIM, but you will probably find the same functionality for less money elsewhere. Used to be owned by Symantec, who were particularly hostile to non-US users, I would hope that has changed now.

Eudora Planner
Vendor : Qualcomm
Website : was at http://eudora.qualcomm.com/betas/planner/
Price : Windows US$80, Mac free beta, Now Up-to-Date for Mac US$100
Platform : Windows 95/8/NT, Mac OS 7.6.1 or greater
Qualcomm took Now Up-to-Date on the Mac, wrote new Windows, Windows server and Mac versions, and then pulled the plug on the whole project.  They got as far as releasing the Windows client, but for a long time the Mac version was left in beta limbo.  Worth a try if you can find it somewhere.

Goldmine
Vendor : Frontrange Solutions
Website : http://www.frontrange.com/goldmine/
Downloads : http://www.frontrange.com/goldmine/goldmine_demos.asp
Price : £195+VAT upwards (in the UK - don't know about the US)
Platform : Windows 95/NT
Usenet : alt.comp.goldmine
A popular corporate contact management package, Goldmine has fallen victim to the CRM craze.  As a result, I'm not sure how much telephony support has been left in, as Frontrange want you to buy their HEAT CTI package. What is certain is that Goldmine integration is supported by many of the programs on my telephony software page.

Janna Contact
Janna was popular because it had lots of features, and fairly simple interface, with good integration with MS and Corel Office. But then Siebel bought the company for over a billion dollars during the tech boom, merged Janna with their financial CRM software, and have just announced that they will be dropping all support for Janna as from the end of 2003. Not many people seem to be migrating over to Siebel, which means that the likes of Interface think they have an opportunity to grab some of their customers.

Maximiser
Vendor : Maximizer Software Inc.
Website : http://www.maximizer.com/solutions/maximizer/index.html
Price : US$189 (online)
Platform : Windows 95/98/NT, versions for Windows CE and Palm, old one for Win 3.1
Another well-featured PIM.

Outlook
Microsoft being Microsoft, existing versions of Outlook don't support Caller ID.  However there are a number of addons that can help. RVS-Com (see ISDN programs) integrates all kinds of communications with Outlook very nicely (faxes are OCR'd into the inbox and so on) but is over £100; the Lite version has some Outlook integration but is only available in hardware bundles.  There are some on the list at http://www.slipstick.com/addins/telephony.htm - such as Exepos' products. Personal Receptionist is on the list, but I don't know whether it links up to Outlook out of the box - it certainly has the flexibility to be made to read your Outlook mails over the phone and the like. Captaris have a variety of sophisticated telephony products, but their Call Xpress program promises tight integration with Outlook. Callscape's Connect add-on claims to integrate with Outlook too.

Telemagic
Vendor : Sage
Website : http://www.telemagic.com/about/about-tm.asp
Price : US$300+, £300 (cheeky for a British company, I say)
Platform : Windows, DOS
Heavy duty corporate PIM - but the price!!! There's also a DOS version.

Links Graveyard
APD Organiser has gone from http://www.apdsolutions.com - does anyone if they still exist?
 

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Copyright Alastair Ainslie 1999-2000.