FrontRange Tailors For MidsizeFrontRange Tailors For Midsize

FrontRange Solutions Inc. has developed a more-granular software suite tailored to midsize businesses, a group previously lumped in the same category as small companies.

FrontRange last week shipped GoldMine Business Contact Manager, a contact-management application for businesses with at least $60 million in revenue. Based on GoldMine 5.5, the new tool is compatible with Microsoft Outlook and Intuit Inc.'s QuickBooks Pro 2002 and Premier 2002. FrontRange's iCalendar spec lets GoldMine users send, accept, decline, or reschedule meetings with non-GoldMine users--a useful feature because salespeople at midsize companies often team on accounts.

Midsize businesses like to customize products more than small companies, which tend to use software right out of the box. But customization must be simple because they usually have small IT staffs. That's one reason Contact Manager comes with new user interfaces, toolbars, and background settings that customers can customize.

FrontRange also improved installation and operation of the software. An installation wizard guides users through an implementation, and the Undocked Sites Installer helps administrators set up, configure, and install the software. Remote users can synchronize data by clicking one button, making the synchronization process easier than earlier products.

In the first quarter, FrontRange will release GoldMine Plus Accounting for QuickBooks 2002 to enable data sharing. Now, users can send GoldMine data to QuickBooks, but they can't share data in real time or query the database via GoldMine. The app will let them synchronize GoldMine customer data with QuickBooks sales data to generate sales reports, as well as query Outlook and QuickBooks to access and transfer order information.

"The accounting product is significant," says Kelly Spang, senior analyst of CRM for Current Analysis. "It streamlines the sales process and should result in a more-efficient sales cycle." Interact Commerce already has integrated QuickBooks with its Act contact-management application.

GoldMine Business Con-tact Manager is priced at $295 for one user, $995 for five, and $1,981 for 10. Plus Accounting will be priced at $99 per user.