Maximizer probably needs no introduction, but I will do it anyway for people who are not very familiar with the customer relationship management (CRM) space. It was founded in 1987 and is one of the CRM pioneers that created personal information management systems (PIM) and opportunity management systems. The first version of the product (3.0, launched in 1996, one year after the acquisition of the Maximizer product line from Modatech Systems) was promoted as “a full-featured contact management system with activity scheduling.”

Many things have changed since 1996, including:

- the acquisition of Tracker Software in 1997 and Cognitech in 1998;
- the release of version 5.0 (in 1998), which brought e-commerce to contact management;
- the announcement of version 9.5, which included MaxMobile for Windows Mobile PDAs in 2006; and
- the launch of a new brand and a corporate focus on Mobile CRM in 2008, including the rollout of next-generation Mobile CRM for BlackBerry and iPhone devices.

The latest version of the product (Maximizer CRM 11)was released in April 2010 and I had the pleasure of having a briefing with Will Anderson, the executive vice president of technology for Maximizer.

What’s New in Version 11?

Version 11 brings a completely new ribbon-style user interface (UI), which looks very familiar to Office 2007 users. Now, the mobile version has a tabbed interface, which makes navigation easier. Also, Maximizer 11 supports Firefox for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

From a functional point of view, here are some of the highlights of the new version:

• Sales quota management allows end users and managers to define, track, and observe quotas, trends, etc., using dashboards customized by user roles.
• Formula fields defined by users can be used to calculate values from two or more user-defined fields, for more robust profiling and reporting.
• Sales opportunity monitoring can be used to set-up alerts, send real-time notifications, and e-mails.
• Online campaign manager has the ability to setup campaigns and track metrics from any Web browser, anywhere in the world.
• Wizard-driven dashboards allow users to easily create, modify, and personalize dashboards, and enable them to drill down to granular data.

Regarding the mobile version of the product, Maximizer CRM 11 brings a new tabbed interface, supports documents and attachments to e-mails, GPS integration, and full access to the CRM database.

Does Maximizer Offer Social CRM (SCRM)?

Today, Maximizer CRM 11 integrates with LinkedIn and Jigsaw. Recently, Jigsaw was acquired by Salesforce.com, so I asked Mr. Anderson: How will Maximizer work with Salesforce? Mr. Anderson replied that Maximizer had a great partnership with Business Objects before their acquisition by SAP and this hasn’t changed. Of course, it is hard to say what Salesforce will do, but Maximizer intends to maintain its relationship with Jigsaw.

As for the integration with Twitter and Facebook—or any other social customer relationship management (SCRM) functionality— Maximizer has plans, but in a future version.

What Can You Expect from Maximizer 12 and Beyond?

Maximizer’s mobile product has been quite successful and it will continue to improve real-time data access and BlackBerry platform integration. Also, integration with other mobile platforms may be provided, including: iPhone, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Android.

We are in the process of updating the data we have for Maximizer related to their level of functionality. Once we have received the new data, users will be able to compare Maximizer CRM 11 to other CRM products in our CRM Evaluation Center.