SalesLogix Corp., the Scottsdale, Arizona-based vendor of sales force automation (SFA) software, plans to launch three web-related products this year, two of them in the second quarter, according to its president and CEO, Pat Sullivan. The new offerings will enhance the operation of the company’s core product, itself known as SalesLogix, which is also to gain greater functionality when the 3.0 version is out in the June/July timeframe. The first two launches will be WebLead Capture, enabling sales reps to download new leads from the company’s database to their laptops via the Internet, and WebClient, which will make it possible for a company to give its customers web access to the database it has built up in SalesLogix, with the customer needing only a browser, rather than their own copy of SalesLogix. It will effectively turn the customer’s computer into a thin client, says Sullivan, with 60% of the functionality of a fat one. The third product will be Channel Partner Server, due out around September, which will enable companies to share leads with business partners, again via a simple browser without the need for SalesLogix software installed on the receiving computer. As for SalesLogix 3.0, which will succeed the current 2.13, Sullivan said a number of features will be added to the new version. ‘It will link to Lotus Notes, PalmPilot, CE and Outlook, as well as accounting packages such as Great Plains, Solomon, State of the Art and Tetra,’ he explained. SalesLogix was formed two and a half years ago and began shipping its core product in April last year, racking up $8m of sales in its first 12 months, retailing at $695m. Sullivan was one of the software programmers at a company called Contec that wrote ACT, the contact manager that leads in that market segments, with a share of some 60%. They subsequently sold it to its current owner, Symantec, for $47m. After a period in which he was contractually prohibited from working in SFA, Sullivan formed SalesLogix in order to serve what he perceived as a segment not being addressed by other vendors, namely the middle market. While shrink-wrapped programs like ACT, GoldMine and Maximizer serve the bottom end adequately, they do not scale up for enterprises. Equally, at the other end of the scale, there are companies such as Vantive and Siebel, whose products are eminently scalable but are far too expensive for medium-sized companies. SalesLogix thus seeks to meet the needs of that group. In addition, Sullivan drew on his experience writing part of ACT to give the SalesLogix product a similar feel, thus facilitating its acceptance by sales personnel accustomed to the former. They can therefore relate to the product from the start, he explained, while appreciating the additional features it has over ACT, such as the ability to look up last names, schedule meetings or write letters.
