James: Yes, we have developed a special conduit that connects the database from the desktop/notebook to the Palm device. We have integrated the Palm Address Book within Prophet for Palm. The same address list that you are familiar with in the address book is available within Prophet for Palm.

David: What are your plans for the other handhelds: Pocket PCs, Blackberries, Sidekicks, and so forth?

James: We are actively working on a solution for Pocket PCs and Blackberries as that is a major request from our users and people who really want to use Prophet.

David Does Prophet for Palm work well over the Treo's phone connection or is this something that requires WiFi or a local HotSync?: James: Currently, Prophet for Palm works with the local HotSync or WiFi sync. After syncing your Palm data with either Palm Desktop or Outlook, your Prophet data will sync to/from the PDA.

David: What do you think the future is going to be like for mobile users who need to manage relationships? What'll it be like 2 years out? 5 years out? 10 years out?

James: As handhelds become more and more powerful and easy to use -- more information will be available on these devices. We will continue to see convergence of various aspects of customer-level data into a single window so that the direct customer contact can have more information and be able to assist customers in a more complete way more quickly.

CRM applications will continue to become more integrated and more easy to use. I believe creating CRM systems that are more intuitive, easier to use and integrated with known systems (like Outlook) are the biggest challenge facing this business. Any team, whether it is sales or customer service, will only use software that is intuitive and helpful.

Small- and medium-sized businesses don't have the time or money to invest in major training programs or dramatic shifts in employee work patterns to fit into how the big CRM companies think you should be communicating with prospects and customers. Integration and ease of use are the primary drivers of adoption and application of CRM in the next 1-10 years.

David: What else would you like to tell our readers?

James: If you don't have a sales process in place, you can't improve what you can't measure. This is the first step toward becoming a more efficient and effective anything. Only by understanding what your sales stages are, how long it takes you to move people from stage to stage, why people aren't moving from stage to stage, and how efficient each rep is within the system, will you be able to improve your customer acquisition efforts.

By eliminating the need to "re-learn" email, calendar, appointments and task management processes (because you are still using Outlook), Prophet helps you get to the establishment of the sales process and utilization of an opportunity management system much more quickly and much more intuitively. This will help you close more sales and improve your bottom line more quickly.

Contributing Editor Bill Mann is a freelance technology writer/instructor who has trained over 2000 people in the use of Microsoft Outlook. Check out his book, "How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007" on Amazon.com. For more on Outlook, visit his website at http://www.living-with-outlook.com. You can also write him at Outlook2007@techforyou.com.