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I'm biased though. I'm a lead tech at a GoldMine VAR. So don't just take my word for it. Please do your own research

For simple rolodex, it's mass overkill. But if you're looking to REALLY automate your sales force, it's the shit.

There's the main Goldmine (Corporate Edition or Premium Edition) app for people in the office or for remote guys syncing through low-speed connections.

You have:

• e-mail functionality
• SMS integration
• calendaring
• fairly sophisticated report generation (plus you have the options of Crystal Reports (which comes free with CE and PE) and SQL Server Reporting)
• Human-readable filtering, grouping, SQL queries, DBase-style queries
• fairly elaborate import and export functionality
• leads management, document management, knowledge management, project management
• automated processes
• Call scripting

And more. There's tons of functionality, of which I've only scratched the surface. And NOBODY uses it all.

Moreover, it's designed to be a networked/shared environment BY DESIGN. Not hacked in like so many other options out there.

For people with higher speed connections, there's virtual desktop/web-client functionality through the iGoldMine product (based on GraphOn). So you can publish not only GoldMine, but other apps (Office, etc).

For mobile users (handheld/phones/etc), there's things like W-Systems' MA HREF="http://www.w-systems.com/www/web/products_wMobile.asp">W-Mobile offering. Presents a nice clean interface for the data, and the upcoming version will actually allow full e-mail functionality.

For just being able to dump a list of appointments to a mobile device, there's options for syncing with Palm devices, Windows mobile devices. And for more elaborate integration of data, there's a product called CompanionLink that'll add options like Crackberry, etc.

With Premium Edition, there's even full-blown SIP/TAPI integration (CE has rudimentary SIP functionality, thought the TAPI link is the same).

And until you start getting into the hundreds of employees, even a modestly powerful server (think low-end desktop but packed with 2-3GB of RAM) is overkill.

If you're looking for real, full-blown helpdesk, you're probably looking at another FrontRange (the guys who make GoldMine) product. HEAT.

We don't deal a whole lot with HEAT. The sales cycles on it are really long, and while we DO know how to install it, some of the other FRS VARs are much better with it than we are. Basically HEAT is THE solution if you're looking for the real-deal solution though. And yes, there's intergration between the HEAT and GoldMine products.

There's actually a third GoldMine product. GoldMine Enterprise Edition. It is, however, a VERY highly specialized product. Essentially it's setup is something similar to PeopleSoft, etc. Out of the box, it doesn't really do anything, and it takes time (and some expensive labor) to build the interface specifically to meet a given company's needs. Unless you have tons of money to burn and highly specialized needs, this solution is HUGE overkill and even FrontRange themselves will warn you that your needs could be met more economically with other products.

We actually use GoldMine itself as a poor-man's helpdesk. Our phone system logs the calls. We just fill out billable history items once we're done. When we get ready to do billing, we just run a filter fo

Try:
http://www.companionlink.com/downloads/
http://www.scheduleworld.com/tg/cal/day.jsp
and of course, the open source
http://www.gcalsync.com/

It's stunning that Yahoo fixed this ages ago. You get a free app to download to your desktop, (Intellisync - works fine).

This from someone who has to sync blackberry, notes, outlook, tbird, act! and oh god I'm going to kill myself if they add any more fsuking apps...just call me 'lord of the ugly hack'

P.S. Dawn takes some of the pain away for non-technical users if doing 'one-way' conversions with CSVs

The calendar part is getting better and better, especially the arrival of syncmycal has improved integration with MS Outlook, but it surely doesn't replace it, yet, because Google Calendar cannot sync with everything, yet.

Yes it can -> http://www.companionlink.com/products/companionlin kforgoogle.html

You can sync GCal with Outlook/Blackberry/whatever with this -> http://www.companionlink.com/products/companionlin kforgoogle.html
You can also enable POP3 with Gmail.

I agree that web based solutions are not yet ready for Corporate America. But this is what these Beta programs can help with. By giving away free services for small businesses and individuals, google can better their products. Right now there are products that can synchronize Google Calendar with desktops, blackberries, palm devices and pocket pc's (Windows Mobile). However, because google hasn't finalized their calendar software, some features do not yet work.

My point is, Web software IS going to one day be acceptable for Corporate America. There are kinks to work out, but I welcome the beta software that is here now because it is moving in the right direction. Microsoft can twiddle their thumbs for years, but SOMEONE is going to catch up to their Workstation monopoly and actually provide user-friendly web-based office products with full backups. Sure, net connectivity is necessry for certain solutions, but it doesn't have to be. Certain apps can be downloaded to the client as needed, and remin in memory after the internet connection has been closed. (Like open office but more modular) In this respect, a user's Operating System is essentially built as needed and the data can be in multiple places at one time, being stored securely.

There are tradeoffs for this type of service (like the mentioned printing of archived files that are only found online) but for some companies and business models, these tradeoffs are worth it.

CompanionLink makes software that will sync gcal to your blackberry. http://www.companionlink.com/clgoogle.html

I've never been tech-support for any ISP. I was a long time ago tech support for a small software company called Companion Link and I made sure the problem was solved before I got off the phone.