After a year marked by political ads, foreign hostilities, and affordability concerns, many look forward to calmer times in 2025. The anticipated recession never materialized, with stocks, the labor market, and interest rates returning to pre-pandemic levels, despite ongoing inflation. And, of course, new AI products & trends abound.
In 2024, we celebrated our 30th year in business, and from a personnel standpoint, it was one of relative calm. Our CTO’s brother, Hashim, joined us for most of the year, working on Link2portal and Act4support Web. After nearly seven years of stellar support service, we bid farewell to Greg Davis in the late fall. On the partner front, we welcomed Luc Grenier and Jill Gibson into the Keystroke family.
The development team released Link2chat, Link2portal, and Link2projects, along with major updates to Call-Aid, Designer, Dash, Act4outlook, MailManager, Act4mail, and Knowtifier. Act! LLC had a few significant milestones this year, as well, with the release of Act! Premium v26, APC Mobile, and several key new features to Act! Premium Cloud, including click-to-dial functionality.
The sales team underwent 12 months of Sandler training, and emerged stronger, though Silvia might still experience some ghosting. This training served them well during the summer when MicroSoft deprecated SQL 2014 and created a spike in Act! upgrade demand across the community.
The highlight, however, is our new partnership with Act! LLC, with more details to follow in the following weeks.
In February, we were honored to become a preferred partner of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), a significant recognition given our 25+ years of membership. We were only the 13th business to receive this honor at the time.
Regarding our commitment to feeding the hungry, we structured our donations less publicly this year. Each month, we donated hundreds of dollars to both Second Harvest and the Toronto Food Bank, and in October, we contributed $1,000 to support Thanksgiving efforts. With one in ten people in Toronto relying on food banks, much work still needs to be done.
Looking Ahead
As an optimist, I foresee good things in the coming year, but for now, we look forward to spending extra time with family and friends during the holiday season. On December 21st, we will gather in Toronto for our annual company dinner, celebrating personal friendships and professional accomplishments, while presenting our year-end department awards.
We sincerely hope the same for everyone reading this message. Victories are sweeter and defeats softer when shared with loved ones.
