Lon Orenstein's Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Bill's book doesn't quite cover everything you can do with Outlook 2007. The one thing he doesn't discuss is Microsoft's contact management add-in for Outlook 2007, Business Contact Manager.

Business Contact Manager (BCM) comes free with Office 2007 Professional and Office 2007 Ultimate and is a complete CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that runs inside of Outlook. While the previous versions of BCM were quite limited, this one's got game.

That's where Lon's book, Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies, shown in Figure B, comes in. If you do sales, maintain relationships, or otherwise have to keep track of people you interact with, Business Contact Manager might be for you.

FIGURE B

If you want to understand BCM, read this book. Click picture for a larger image.

Lon knows more about small business CRM than any other person I've met, and I've met a lot of people. His background was as one of the leading aftermarket developers and consultants for ACT!, the grandaddy of PC CRM programs. Lon's worked with more companies and more CRM business challenges than just about anyone else on the planet.

And, now, in Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies, he applies that enormous font of knowledge, in-the-trenches experience, and expertise to BCM.

As I'm sure you know, Dummies books have a signature writing style. One of the interesting things about this book is how Lon manages to both meet the Dummies books writing style, but also inject elements of his own years of experience into the narrative.

Over all, if you intend to make money with BCM, then you should own this book. It's one of the best investments you could make.

We give Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies five contact records out of five.

OUR RATING: 5 of 5

Product availability and resources For more information about Bill Mann, visit http://www.living-with-outlook.com. Read How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. For more information about Lon Orenstein, visit http://www.pinpointtools.com. Read Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies.

Diane Poremsky is the president of CDOLive LLC and a Microsoft Outlook MVP. She's author of Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours (Sam's, 2003) and coauthor of OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide). For questions or suggestions for future columns, write her at outlook@cdolive.com.