Tweet this: Sage innovates without Web 2.0

The supposed talking heads of enterprise software often complain that there's little "innovation" any more in the industry. I've never been sure what they mean by "innovation," but most recently it seems it must include an integration to the newest Web 2.0 app as a requisite. What I actually think is more useful, if not sexy or innovative, is when vendors put something out that improves the lives of a large number of users at a large number of their customers. (Man, I'm boring!). I think what Sage has done with  it's CRM ACT! 11 is an example of this. (Caveat, I haven't used ACT since I was a sales guy years ago and am thus basing this on having read a few articles and imaging what this integration does). Critics (or cynics) may argue that integrating MS Outlook calendar and email functionality with a CRM system is not innovative, but I would argue that the impact of this integration on a daily user of both applications is significant. But what the hell do I know? I work at a traditional software company and I don't even Twitter! 

Sage recently re-announced this integration at CeBIT in Germany this week, but I also found this article in English from last year.

[Sage][Outlook][ACT!]