SoftwareOnSailboats Review

SoftwareOnSailboats (SOS) seems set to take its fair share of this increasingly crowded CRM marketspace.

Our evaluation of the product left us impressed and confident that it was destined for greater things.

The Software On Saiboats Desktop Sales Manager more than holds its own against products like Microsoft Business Contact Manager (MS BCM). It’s better looking, with lots more under the hood, and at $90, more competitively priced.

The download went without a hitch, as did the installation. First impressions (for which you never get a second chance) were good, even if based only on the cosmetics of the software. The user interface is intuitive and pleasing to the eye. It was easy to create records, set up user-definable fields and navigate our way around. The reporting features are particularly strong: flexible and well designed and sure to impress the B.O.S.S. The Outlook integration is slick, too. Better than most other applications we’ve looked at. On the down side, the product is not yet networkable, but we have been assured that a network version is imminent. Once this is feature is available though, products like Goldmine with move squarely into their sights. Being developed with MS .NET, will enable it to be easily integrated to other applications when needed and stand the product in good stead for the future. Features of Software on Sailboats Desktop Sales Manager include:

• The ability to forecast sales by combining individual territory pipelines into a consolidated pipeline
• 8 Analysis reports, 9 Executive reports, and 6 Revenue reports provide detailed insight into “the business of sales”
• Learn how often you are getting outsold. Learn when your solution is strong or weak
• Archived won/lost sales opportunities provides trend analysis and the raw data for decisions like hiring, sales performance, and pricing strategy.
• Easy distribution of leads to field sales professionals
• 20 customizable data fields, and a time-stamped Journal
• 15 point sales analysis, and a 10 point competitive sales analysis
• On-screen analysis of your pipeline – keyed by any data field or property. Eg. Probability, Sales Stage, Week Due, Overdue
• Their Outlook Connection creates detailed Outlook tasks, email, appointments, and uses all your Outlook contacts
• A neat Dashboard highlights any opportunities that require your special attention
• It is very portable. Use their Pocket Sales Manager in conjunction with a Pocket PC and hit the road.

Desktop Sales Manager requires no special server hardware so installation is absolutely straight forward.

Pricing.

At only $90 per user for their Desktop Sales Manager module, SoftwareOnSailboats is one of the best value-for-money CRM solutions on the market. Add $20 for the Template Manager if you want to further customize the product. If you are wanting mobile functionality, $30 buys you their nifty Pocket Sales Manager.

They also offer a free Trial Version.