Vancouver’s Maximizer Software now has a smartphone version of its customer relationship management application for workers who want detailed contact information from their Maximizer desktop program on their handhelds.
MaxMobile CRM Smartphone gives users of phones such as the Motorola Q, Motoroloa Razr and Samsung Blackjack read and write access to Maximizer-created contact lists, service cases, sales opportunities and calendar items, as well as Microsoft Outlook e-mail.
Access is available even if the phone cannot link wirelessly to the data centre, according to Peter Callaghan, Maximizer’s chief sales officer. Instead, files can be synchronized when the phone is within range of a transmitter or the user returns to his or her desk.
It follows the release last year of MaxMobile CRM for devices running the Windows Mobile platform and MaxLink for Palm OS devices.
The release of the smartphone version reflects the increasing popularity of the platform.
“There’s demand from our 8,000 corporate customers for us to remain current on new devices,” said Callaghan.
It will be sold through the company’s 150 partners in the Americas.
Karen Brodie, president of Brodie Computes of Guelph, Ont., a Maximizer channel partner that specializes in CRM applications, said in an interview that most of her firm’s customers use RIM BlackBerrys so it hasn’t sold many copies of MaxMobile for Windows.
However, more of them have smartphones “so I think there will be an interest in products like this,” she said.
MaxMobile CRM Smartphone needs Maximizer Enterprise 9.5. It has to be installed on each device, and sells for $249 per device. A lighter version, called MaxMobile for Smartphones, works with the desktop Maximizer 9 and doesn’t include the field service capabilities which the Enterprise edition offers.
