Rating: 
Summary: buggy resource hog
Review: A longtime ACT fan, I upgraded to 6.0 for the email integration and library tab. They don't work unless I turn off scripting protection in Norton AntiVirus - tedious at best and I'm unwilling to leave it turned off. The ACT for Palm feature, the other item that sold me, is very limited - for example shows me only the primary contact for a given company. The real problem is the bugs. It causes unrelenting problems on my XP system. I have 1 GB of RAM and a 2.8 processor! Yet somehow it manages to cause memory shortages and locks up regularly. I've almost stopped using it because it's as much an annoyance as help. I've never had a software program that I evaluate before launching: do I have time for a lock up? NONE of my other software programs cause these kinds of problems, and I run some heavy-duty graphics programs. I'm at the point of looking for another contact manager, which is too bad because I was a solid ACT user for so many years.
Rating: 
Summary: Not perfect but perfect for my needs.
Review: I am a Virtual Assistant who works with several clients who use ACT. I keep their databases up to date and synchronize with them whenever necessary. ACT 6.0 is a bit bloated and has unnecessary features but on my machine it has been stable and was easy to set up. This is a good, solid database program that has great customer forums available on their web site.
Rating:
Summary: Not perfect but perfect for my needs.
Review: I am a Virtual Assistant who works with several clients who use ACT. I keep their databases up to date and synchronize with them whenever necessary. ACT 6.0 is a bit bloated and has unnecessary features but on my machine it has been stable and was easy to set up. This is a good, solid database program that has great customer forums available on their web site.
Rating: 
Summary: If not ACT!; Then what?
Review: I am in excatly the same boat; Since 1993 using ACT! (when it was good for it's time) (sending faxes, letters, etc from the contact), and waited for the new millenium up to date with e mail, but it does not work.
So, If not ACT!, any suggestions for an alternative? I have 14,000 database, and use it to group, send a newsletter via email, and a susbscription (print labels and manage subs) of about 8,000.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Rating: 
Summary: ACT! 6.0 - Review
Review: I disagree with the bad reviews on ACT! 6.0. I think ACT! 6.0 is a phenomenal product and it has been my lifeline since version 2.0. In the past my biggest complaint about ACT! was the e-mail client. In the past it wasn't real user friendly like the rest of ACT! but with ACT! 6.0 the e-mail client has caught up with the core competency and now I can stay within the program at all times. I can also generate simple invoices and quotes to my customers through the new library tab, which is one of my favorite new features. I think ACT! 6.0 is a solid upgrade from ACT! 2000 and it is worth the [$$] bucks just for the e-mail portion and I would pay another [$$] for the library tab... In my opinion, the people writing bad reviews on ACT! 6.0 don't use it to its full capabilities and therefore they do not recognize the improvements. Sincerely, Satisfied ACT! Customer for 10 years!
Rating:
Summary: Switched to ACT! 6.0
Review: I have been a Goldmine user for the last four years, but after downloading the free trial version of ACT! 6.0 from their web site, I decided to switch. ACT! 6.0 has a much nicer graphical interface and more enriched features than previous releases. ACT! 6.0 integrated nicely with my outlook XP so that I am able to compose and read messages that are sent with Outlook from within the ACT! console. This is a nice feature because email retrieved by ACT! this way can be scanned by my anti-virus software. The library tab is a nice added feature and it allows you to associate several media type files with your contact. Data conversion for me was quick. I found it fairly easy to set up custom field and reports within ACT. I would recomend this product strongly to anyone who is in the market for contact software. If you are already an Outlook user, this product is particular nice because of its integration with that program.
Rating: 
Summary: Upgrade only if you need the new email capabilities
Review: I upgraded from ACT 2000 because I needed to be able to send out email mailings to my customers in HTML. ACT 6 does do that pretty well, so I'm pleased I went ahead with the upgrade. But without doubt Interact has introduced a lot of bugs into the product -- I guess they lost most of the programmers who knew the program when they bought ACT from Symantec. The email program itself is buggy and will only work for me if I have Outlook running as well. Also, very frustrating, is that the wordprocessor driver crashes after one use, so I can only create one document at a time then I have to reboot. Their support site doesn't seem to have a solution for this.
Apart from rewriting the email system, there is very little that's upgraded from ACT 2000, as far as I can tell.
Rating:
Summary: Upgrade only if you need the new email capabilities
Review: I upgraded from ACT 2000 because I needed to be able to send out email mailings to my customers in HTML. ACT 6 does do that pretty well, so I'm pleased I went ahead with the upgrade. But without doubt Interact has introduced a lot of bugs into the product -- I guess they lost most of the programmers who knew the program when they bought ACT from Symantec. The email program itself is buggy and will only work for me if I have Outlook running as well. Also, very frustrating, is that the wordprocessor driver crashes after one use, so I can only create one document at a time then I have to reboot. Their support site doesn't seem to have a solution for this.
Apart from rewriting the email system, there is very little that's upgraded from ACT 2000, as far as I can tell.
Rating:
Summary: Its not THAT bad!
Review: I upgraded right when it first became available. Yes, there are some minor bugs (as is with all major windows product releases). I do wish they had built in a function to search for and merge duplicate entries, but by and large it is a good upgrade. The e-mail interface is a thousand times better than the old version which makes this upgrade worth it by itself. I also like the new date searchable fields (so you can look up birthdays and items like that). What I don't like is that once you upgrade, everyone else you synchronize with has to upgrade too. That is unecessary and I called the folks at ACT! and told them about this. I am looking forward to the service pack, and when the first service pack is released, addressing the minor bugs, I think this will be a worthwhile upgrade for most ACT! users.
Rating:
Summary: If you use a server, do not upgrade to ACT 6.0
Review: I was stupid enough to be drawn into the hype marketing of the fabulous ACT 6.0 upgrade and had planned to use it to its full capacity. Since putting our 14,000 plus contacts database on the server just 2 months ago, it has completely corrupted twice, lost valuable data, corrupted outlook twice, constantly stops reponding and wasted the equivalent of about 3 weeks work trying to fix the damn thing. We try to use the database to a reasonable capacity only to be stopped at every turn. I spend more time navigating the service website only to find more and more ridiculous bugs that have not been addressed. The latest recommendation was to exclude Norton anti virus from checking any database files - a dangerous practice to get into. Good luck anyone who has enough patience to persevere with this waste of money, resources and time.
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