Over the last few years, very few changes have been made to the MailMerge and MailManager products. Both were subscription products, and both provided effective tools for emarketing within Act!.

Late last year, when Microsoft updates broke mail merging through Outlook, we released a third product called MailMerge Lite which was a stripped-down version of MailMerge, and had a one-time price of only $59.95. This product took off. Not only did it solve an immediate Outlook problem, but it was also priced to move.

Unfortunately, the Outlook problem has returned, and a whole new population of users is facing the same frustration as the first wave did last year. It was with this issue in mind that we decided to make some changes to the MailMerge family of products.

Firstly, all three products have been combined into one feature-gated product. This change may not be exciting to the end-user, but it reduces three code bases down to one, making for easier updating for us, and simpler upgrading for them.

Secondly, some features like WebForms, Act4outlook, and Knowtifier it have been removed from MailManager altogether. These bundled add-ons increased the complexity of the installation and added to the subscription cost without commensurate return, so they were removed.

Thirdly, the features of each have been simplified and broken down into three tiers, with all of them including the following powerful marketing features in the first tier of MailMerge Lite:

• Create/Edit Templates in Rich Text Editor. An easy-to-use publisher with all the table, graphics, and editing tools you'll need to produce professional-looking emails and printed letters
• Convert Native Act Templates using Template Converter
• Merge To Word or Merge To Email
• Multi-threading
• Improved Outlook error handling and enhanced CC and BCC controls
• Merge Contact & Opportunity fields into your emails or letters
• Records History in Act! of mail merge, and includes a new "Message Details" History recording section to help with History bloat from large mail merges.

In the second tier, MailMerge & MailManager will deliver the following additional features:

• "Email from Stationary"
• "MergeMail from HTML"
• Scheduled sends
• Suppression based on field
• Send in batches
• Send intervals

And finally. The third tier, namely MailManager will exclusively support the following features:

• Optin Manager
• Opt-outs in the footer
• Manage Bounced Emails

Commercially, we’re making big changes to the products, as well. MailMerge and MailMerge Lite will now both be one-time purchases of $59.95 and $119.95 respectively. MailManager, on the other hand, will remain a subscription product, but be reduced to $159.95 per year.

We think our customers will welcome these changes and certainly appreciate the reduced costs across the three tiers. Henceforth, subscription pricing will be limited to products that either require ongoing service delivery like Opt-in Manager, or regular updates like Handheld Contact. If neither of these are required or relevant to a product, we’ll look to provide our customers with a fair one-time purchase price. This isn’t to say our perpetual licensed products won’t be improved or compatibility updates provided, it just means those will be delivered with upgraded versions of the product.

Upgraded products, like the five versions of Act4outlook, can be purchased at the customers' discretion, and we believe customers are happier when they can choose what to spend their money on.

Current subscribers of MailMerge and MailManager will be given the choice of how they'd like to migrate at their renewal. MailMerge customers can opt for a perpetual license or upgrade to MailManager, while MailManager customers can either jump at the $80 per annual savings or switch to one of the two perpetual products.