SmartCompany's Turbo 1.0

I tested the beta version of Turbo in our Green Bay, Wis., Real-World Labs®. I installed and enabled the required Word and Outlook with .Net programmability support, which gave me access to features such as merging contact data with documents and duplicating tasks/ appointments created in Turbo within Outlook.

SlowdownsAlthough Turbo was responsive when using Web services, it didn't take advantage of SSL to secure server communications. This is a beta issue, SmartCompany tells me--in released versions of both its CRM service and the Turbo client, all communications will be SSL-encrypted, though the vendor warns that this may hamper the "snappy" performance of the Web services. But even using existing Web components, the embedded browser control was as sluggish as Internet Explorer--no surprise since Turbo uses the same internal browser control as IE. That means Turbo probably also has the same security vulnerabilities, so patch often.

Opportunities, leads and orders, as well as additional goodies such as associated notes, tasks and transactions, are available for management in Turbo. But the biggest reason to use this smart client is the ability to manipulate lengthy lists, such as contacts, leads and opportunities, using pivot tables. I could sort these lists by any column value, such as Status and Owner, which rearranged the lists into expanded, clustered lists (see screenshot). This is a powerful organization method that isn't possible without complex programming in a Web interface.

SmartCompany's on-demand CRM allows all the functionality, including administrative of users, roles and report generation, to be handled through Turbo. In addition, Turbo has a small disk footprint for a client--only 9 MB.

Lori MacVittie is a Network Computing senior technology editor working in our Green Bay, Wis., labs. Write to her at [email protected].0