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Intellisync 4.0

Intellisync 4.0

List Price: $69.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Try it before you buy it.
Review: A 30-day trial version is available for download directly from Pumatech. Then buy it from Amazon. This is the only single user software I've been able to locate which will synchronize a Palm with Lotus Notes. I got the Palm for my wife (a power user by the looks of it), but in order to be practical it had to be able to download all of her calendar from Lotus. She's not a technophile; I was afraid she'd be annoyed (she loves Franklin Planners) with buttons and wires. She loves it. But it was Intellisync that made it practical. Installing Intellisync was easy and trouble free. She has no trouble at all plugging in the Palm via its HotSync cable and hitting the synchronize button on the cable plug. Upon doing this, the Palm "wakes up" and the PC wakes up, (Lotus doesn't even have to be running!). Intellisync then begins its job of comparing the Palm's database with Lotus' and vice versa. Before updating either, it displays a report on the PC and asks for confirmation. Any conflicts are resolvable at this time (i.e. the same person's address being changed in both Lotus and the Palm, which one should be kept?) All her appointments are copied (even all day events). The same for her personal address book under Lotus, and To Do items. The Palm isn't enabled for e-mail, so this isn't an issue. The software that ships with the Palm is adequate for synchronizing with Outlook 2000. Intellisync plus the Palm allow her to synchronize Lotus Notes at work with Outlook at home. We only had to purchase an extra HotSync cable. The details: Palm m100; HotSync serial cable; Intellisync 4.0; Lotus Notes R5 (5.0.2a); Windows 95 running on Gateway 300mhz Pentium.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nicely done with unavoidable complexity
Review: After playing around with this thing for a while, I use it for my Novell GroupWise address book but nothing else. Actually, you must synchronize through it for everything, but for all of the other applications I just tell it to synchronize with my Palm desktop, as before. I could use it for other applications; I just don't, because I ran into more trouble (with GroupWise, not with Intellisync) than it's worth. This product tries to do a lot, synchronizing with a variety of different applications (e.g., Outlook). You probably wouldn't be interested in this at all if you weren't using some application other than Palm desktop already. This leads to unavoidable complexity, with all the different tricks and quirks involved in the several applications supported. I don't know that anyone could improve significantly upon the way Intellisync copes with this, applying common sense and providing just about the right number of options (more would just add perhaps unnecessary additional complexity). But don't buy this unless you are prepared to spend at least a moderate amount of time mastering details, reading the manual or at least systematic trial and error, etc.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: UN-Intellisync 4.0
Review: Doesn't work with my PalmVIIx and compaq with Win 2000 pro AT ALL. I would be thrilled to give the complete package to someone @ 50% OFF just to get it off my shelf. I use EasySync 3.0a from Lotus. It works great! gene

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Horrible customer service support
Review: I bought this product and it worked well for a while; however, several months ago, I started having problems synching with my desktop. I lost all my information on the palm pilot and I've not been able to synch for several months now. I tried calling the Customer support line for several weeks and when I did eventually get the right number, they were of absolutely no help. None, what so ever. Based on the horrible service I received, I will never buy another product from this company.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Intellisync 4.0 is well worth the $$$...
Review: I can finally use my Palm the way I want. Great product. Simple to use and very versatile. Had no problems keeping dates on my Calender and using my outlook. It also has great personaliztion tools. Overall well worth the money.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Buyer Beware - Terrible operation and no support
Review: I cannot speak for other programs Intellisync claims to support, but I can say my experience with transferring between Intellisync and Lotus Notes has been one of the worst I have had. As a systems person with over 15 years experience, that's very bad.

It is true that it installs easily, but it is totally unreliable and unpredictable in its behavior when synching your Palm appointments with Lotus Notes 4.5 calendar.

Our office purchased one copy and tested it for several days. While its functional design could be improved, it seemed to work acceptably. After we bought six copies, erratic behavior started appearing in our original test installation. We have had similar problems with a second installation.

Please refer to A Sofware User from Buffalo for a good account similar to our experiences. Tech Support has *never* responded to our e-mails. We were so fed up at that point that we have not pursued it further and are writing this up as a loss.

You cannot selectively accept or decline changes. This results in duplications that you either have to live with or manually delete in the Palm or in Notes. Sometimes appointments aren't picked up at all. There seems to be no consistency to the behavior to let us diagnose the problem. There is a Re-synch option to re-do from scratch, but it doesn't work consistently, either. We have had to uninstall and reinstall IntelliSTINK (as we now call it) and sometimes even the Palm Desktop software to correct inconsistencies. But again, this doesn't last.

I am always a little uncomfortable reading strong negative reviews because I wonder if the reviewer simply didn't follow instructions and is unfairly venting. In this case, several different people with years of PC experience have worked with this software, thoroughly studied the documentation, and tried a host of approaches to get acceptable operation. As a systems office, we know you can't find perfect software, so we weren't expecting perfection in this.

Unfortunately, this is so flawed and aggravating to work with that I would urge you to look elsewhere. Since there are a number of positive reviews, though, you may find it works for you, but definitely try the software for your particular setup before you buy it. And be sure to test it heavily. It may appear to work fine at first, but repeated use seems to lead to problems. Plus, based on other negative reviews of the support, you're not going to get much help from PumaTech.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Doesn't Sync Palm m500 With Groupwise
Review: I had been using Intellisync 4.0 to sync my Palm III with Groupwise and had no problems with it.

I recently purchase a Palm m500. When I tried to sync it to Groupwise using the USB cradle I would get an "Can Not Find API" error. I then turned on the wait forever feature on my Palm m500. With the wait forever on Hotsync would go into a "Not Responding" state when I tried to sync with Groupwise 5.2. In both cases I was able to sync with the Palm Desktop using Intellisync without a problem.

I checked Puma's web site and found information that 3Com was aware of the problem and working on a patch. I chatted with a 3Com customer service representative. She stated that the problem was that Intellisync couldn't respond fast enough, due to the speed of the USB cradle, causing Hotsync to time out. She told me that Puma needed to fix their software.

I e-mail Puma and they confirmed that the problem was with their software. They did not indicated that they had any plans to resolve the problem.

I then purchased a serial cradle for my Palm m500. But, the problem with Hotsync going into a "Not Responding" state when syncing with GroupWise continued to happen no matter what I did with the speed settings in Hotsync and on my Palm m500.

Luckly, I was able to export my address book from GroupWise and import it into the Palm Desktop. I was not able to export my appointments and tasks from GroupWise, so I have to enter all my appointments and tasks manually into my Palm m500.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Lousy Customer Support
Review: I have used intellisync 3.5 for several years and have found it adequate although technical support was limited/expensive, so encouraging purchases of upgrade. I just bought 4.0 as an upgrade but didnt notice that they had dropped support for Meeting Maker which is my calendaring Application. The last version which supports MM was version 3.7 which is no longer in stores and only avaialable from their website. I called their support # and best they could suggest was to buy v3.7 and east the cost of 4.0 since they wouldnt do an exchange.

Their are to morals to this story : (1) Read the compatibility/functionality sttements BEFORE you buy and (2) try not to do business with customers service orgs who care only about $.....not customers satisfaction.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Product Works Erratically and Tech Support is Poor
Review: I installed this product in early February and have been fighting to get it to sync my e-mail from Lotus Notes 4.5 ever since. The calendar syncs fine, but the software terminates every time during the e-mail sync and nothing transfers. I have reinstalled both the Intellisync and Palm applications, had my drives and network profiles reinstalled, and configured Intellisync every way under the sun. Pumatech tech support gave me a few suggestions, none of which worked. When I called back, they wanted me to buy a "tech support ticket" for $19.95 because my 30 day free tech support warranty was expired!

I'm not wasting any more time or money on this product. I'll switch to something that works.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just what I needed
Review: I just installed Intellisync 4.0 on my PC, in order to sychronize with my Palm 3x. I was waiting for a new version of this product to come out due to previous reviews noting problems synchronizing with Outlook 2000. I have not noticed any such problems with this version. Installation was easy, and I was up and running in no time. Previously, I had been running the Franklin planner software on my PC, as I had purchased the Palm from Franklin Covey. At work we use Outlook, so I ended up maintaining two seperate pieces of software - Outlook for email and email contacts, Franklin for calender and phone/snail mail contacts. Now I use Outlook for all, and I will abandon the Franklin software. I can't remember the exact process for the initial synchronization, but I didn't loose any contact info, and basically Outlook just sucked up everything that was in the Palm. It was so easy!! I give Intellisync 5 stars because it performed exactly as I had hoped and was extremely simple.


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