Alltel Woos BlackBerry Users With CRM App

U.S. cellular carrier Alltel Wireless on Friday began offering a customer-relationship management application, called SalesNow, to small businesses that use BlackBerry smartphones.

By implementing SalesNow on their BlackBerrys, small businesses can track and manage their contacts, deals, activities, and e-mails, and also share information with sales teams, according to Alltel. The type of information users can share includes weekly reports, team forecasts, and details of business deals.

SalesNow, which was developed by Interchange Solutions, works with the BlackBerry platform's e-mail and activity management technology. The application automatically synchs up with a hosted SalesNow Web site, so any changes made on BlackBerrys are reflected in the app when users return to the office.

"Wireless CRM is one of the fastest growing areas in enterprise mobility. SalesNow on the BlackBerry platform brings mobile CRM to SMBs and gives them the access to information and communications that can substantially improve mobile productivity and customer service," said Jeff McDowell, VP of Research In Motion's Global Alliances, in a statement when SalesNow first made its debut at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium last May.

U.S. businesses will spend $9 billion on mobile CRM and other mobile applications by 2011, according to a recent study by Compass Intelligence. The study predicts that businesses will shift their spending from messaging to CRM and other collaboration applications, meaning they will focus more on strategic mobility instead of tactical mobility.

Alltel is offering the software for $25 a month for individual users and $40 a month for business users with qualifying data plans on BlackBerrys sold by the carrier.