Maximizer, based on Canada, is now on version 10 of its flagship Maximizer product. The recently launched and re-branded, Entrepreneur version is built for smaller companies and specifically designed to carry them through the growth stages of their company by enabling them to easily migrate to the fuller size versions professional, group and enterprise. (See the differences here)

I spoke with Angie Hirata, Maximizer’s worldwide director of marketing and business development and she explained that one of the recent big focuses for Maximizer is on mobility. Mobility is more than just having access to corporate information, but she explained that that it’s about enabling a mobile work force to tie in to the company’s corporate information strategy. For example - knowing when there are new service tickets to respond to or being informed when new leads come in.

I wondered what has kept Maximizer as a viable company after all these years. The competition 5 years ago, was much different than what it was now. Maximizer is clearly doing something right.

With 8,500 corporate clients and over a million licenses sold Angie feels the secret sauce of their success is customers are real power users

Like many of is competitors, Maximizer has a “BlackBerry” solution: Max Mobile for BlackBerry devices which provides real time updates through BlackBerry’s. One can also use Max Mobile with Maximizer CRM which connects your mobile device to your PC via a USB cable. For companies with server based CRM needs, Max Mobile can wirelessly synchronize directly to a Maximizer server.

Maximizer has been quite slow to adopt a hosted solution and as of today does not have one. For now most Maximizer customers prefer a software based solution. Many of Maximizer customers are banks and others who would prefer a more traditional solution. However, I think (I hope) we’ll see Maximizer with a competitive web based offering, sooner rather than later.

Microsoft Outlook is the KING of email productivity and small businesses can use the accompanying Microsoft Business Contact Manager (BCM) to boost Outlook email from just email to a robust, but lite, CRM application.

With this in mind I asked Angie how Maximizer stacks up against BCM. She explained that:

• Maximizer is quite complementary to BCM while being competitive at the same time.
• There are a lot of Outlook integration points in Maximizer, providing full integration to Outlook
• Part of this integration means that Maximizer can sync from Outlook, to Microsoft Exchange, to Blackberry - keeping the user’s data up-to-date in Maximzer.
• Maximizer has an unlimited number of user defined fields
• It also has a central document repository

As a way to provide added value for its customers, Maximizer has partnered with a relatively new company Candogo, founded by executives from Sage, to provide Maximizer users with business insight and advice. Maybe this is a trend? NetBooks recently signed a deal with John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing to provide NetBooks users with coaching advice as well. I know for years Palo Alto software has bundled a number of great books - including from Guy Kawaski in its software.