CRM as a pretty big term and can mean a lot of things. I like to think of CRM in pieces that work together. Marketing is the demand creation portion; Contact Management/Sales Force Automation (SFA) is the meeting and greeting part of the customer relationship; Billing/Finance is the money part; Customer Service is the response to issues part; Inventory & Production is the getting the project done part.

You can manage each part of this equation separately or they can all work together. If they all need to work together, you'll probably need some sort of client-server set-up so that lots of people can share information.

David: My understanding is Prophet's a CRM product. What makes it unique?

James: Prophet is unique because it is built into the latest versions of Outlook instead of a separate application like ACT, Goldmine or SalesForce.com. Prophet actually sits inside of Outlook and adds a sales opportunity management solution to Outlook so you can continue to use your Outlook email, calendar, tasks, etc. But Prophet adds a way to track and organize all of the information that you need to stay on top of, to be a lean, mean selling machine.

Prophet achieves this by utilizing the .NET platform to actually create a relationship with the contact database and other "services" inside of Outlook like appointments and tasks. The Prophet database contains all the information about the sales opportunities and other Prophet specific information while relating that information to the data already in Outlook. It's like adding another "service" to Outlook that uses the same data.

Prophet fits squarely into the Contact Management/Sales Force Automation section of CRM. Once a potential customer has been identified (a prospect), a sales opportunity is created in Prophet. As the relationship progresses -- you call them, email them, talk to them about the product or service you offer, set appointments, take notes, etc., Prophet gives you the system to keep this information in an organized manner.

If you only have one prospect, it's not that much of an organizational burden -- however if you are a business sales professional and are constantly on the phone, shooting emails, working with prospects -- keeping all of the details and transactions for a prospect or an opportunity organized and easily accessible can be daunting.

David: Prophet is an Outlook Add-in. How does the new Prophet for Palm application work?

James: Since Prophet data sits on top of the Outlook data and has a direct relationship to the contact and other data in Outlook, we've developed a way to send that same data to your Palm devices with the same sorts of relationships to the system on your laptop or desktop. So, when you synch your Palm, you are also synching the data in Outlook and Prophet. This means you can update opportunity information including notes, tasks, appointments, where you are in the sales process, etc.

David: Are you creating a special Palm conduit? Can you also share information in the Palm Address Book and Tasks, or do you use a completely separate application?