Small business owners and their sales teams can get the structure they need for a successful sales process with Prophet 4.0 Professional, the software that integrates directly into Microsoft Outlook. This intuitive product provides features such as advanced filtering of opportunities, sharing of task information among team members, centralized reporting, an off-line mode for mobile users, and automated scheduling for e-mail, tasks, and appointments.

The simple automation provided for common sales tasks was what grabbed me the most. It lets you, for example, set up an e-mail to be sent to all your contacts, or automatically schedule a follow-on activity. Companies that want to customize sales processes and provide selective access to contacts and opportunities, though, should look to Prophet Enterprise. Prophet Professional allows only rudimentary contact sharing, so organizations with sales people who collaborate will want to purchase Prophet Server and, to avoid synchronization issues, use it with Microsoft Exchange Server. Single users who don’t want automated follow-ups or a centralized server will find the $99.95 Prophet Personal more cost-effective.

Prophet’s customization capabilities are weak, and the Group Email Wizard is rather rudimentary. I also encountered some minor UI issues. Still, the product offers the same basic functionality as ACT! and Goldmine, but in an easier-to-use package for existing Microsoft Outlook users.

Designers now have a tool that lets users create modern CSS and XML-based Web pages without fuss and produces efficient, universally compatible code with minimal effort. Nothing else matches Microsoft Expression Web’s standards based approach or so easily lets you build Web pages that display data from XML files.

At first glance, the software looks like the late, lamented Front Page 2003. It uses a similar menu structure and choice of relatively WYSIWYG views: design, pure-code, and code on top with the visual design below. FrontPage features that create standards-based code for any browser and Web server still work. New task panes and toolbars let you build and edit CSS styles and give point-and-click control over XML data sources.

The master page helps you easily create a consistent site. Fashioning dynamic data views requires almost no effort, and if you know CSS basics, a simple right-click on an element lets you control formatting of a data view. You won’t yet find the range of add-ins available for Adobe Dreamweaver, though.

Microsoft Expression Web lacks Secure FTP file-transfer support for publishing sites to the Web, but that’s a relatively minor complaint about an otherwise elegant and efficient application. I strongly recommend it to anyone building Web pages. That said, stay tuned for my review of Dreamweaver’s CS3 edition.

Aimed as a supplement to its own SONAR technology and using technology from Sana Security, Symantec released the standalone Norton AntiBot beta in early June. AntiBot runs in the background (Symantec says it doesn’t conflict with other malware-fighting apps) but doesn’t use the traditional signature approach to sniff out viruses. Rather, it keeps an eye on programs’ behaviors, noting keystroke logging, Web sites they try to reach, Registry changes, and more. Symantec isn’t offering tech support for AntiBot, but Vista support is included.

Conversely, LavaSoft’s new Ad-Aware 2007, also released in early June, reportedly won’t offer Vista support until August. In addition to a free version of the venerable malware detector, paid Pro ($39.95) and Plus ($26.95) versions are available. The free version forgoes customized scans, scheduling ability, Real-Time Monitor, Ad-Watch RegShield, free support, and other features. Besides enhanced CSI (Code Sequence Identification) detection and a retooled engine, Ad-Aware also now sports a snappy new interface.

A company called Vervata has released new Pro and Light versions of its FlexiSPY software for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia Series 60 phones. Running invisibly in the background and accessible only via “secret code,” both versions track all SMS messages, call logs, email, and device location, uploading the info to a Web-accessible company server for “viewing and analysis.” Pro additionally lets you turn on a phone’s microphone from any other phone. Yikes. Unethical? Not according to Vervata managing director Atir Raihan, who’s quoted in a press release we received as saying, “While spying on people may seem unethical, cheating spouses, rogue employees sharing private company data, or unsuspecting children receiving SMS messages from pedophiles are all activities nobody wants to see happen.” Interestingly, our company’s Web filter blocked access to FlexiSpy.com. Vervata says FlexiSPY isn’t a virus or Trojan, but F-Secure labels it as malware.

The web’s top free video calling provider further cements its position with this latest release. In SightSpeed 6.0, totally revised, fully SIP-compliant code drives Windows and Mac compatibility, improved video, and a streamlined interface.

After a simple setup, the Basic service gives anyone with at least a 128-Kbps connection and a webcam free, brilliantly clear PC-to-PC video and voice calls, chat sessions, 30-second video e-mails to other service members, and more. The text-chat feature has an improved look-and-feel similar to that of Skype, lets you open multiple chat windows and takes a more prominent place. The reasonably good IM, however, still can’t match that of services like AOL and Yahoo!. But Version 6.0 introduces SightSpeedTV, an exciting capability that lets PCs with TV tuners stream to Internet-connected devices.

With the premium service, you can record live video calls to your PC. Other benefits include unlimited voice mail, video mail, and video conference calls; group text messaging; lifetime video e-mail storage; and a Web page. Making calls to and receiving them from landline and cell phones requires the fee-based SightSpeed In and SightSpeed Out services, respectively. The features and improvements to this already excellent service.

Your legacy applications won’t work under Windows Vista? Run it under an older operating system you’ve loaded into Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (VPC 07). The utility may not be quite as full-featured as VMware Workstation, but it has one big advantage, because it’s free!

VPC 07 runs under Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate, plus XP Professional and Tablet Edition, but not Vista Home or XP Home. You can install nearly any PC-compatible OS inside its virtual machines, though. I got DOS 6.22, Red Hat Linux, Windows 95, Windows 98, and two instances of XP working. The virtual machines can all read the system’s CD and DVD drives and can take turns using the floppy disk drive. But for USB support, you need a competitor: VMware or Parallels Workstation.

VPC can save and restore a VM’s state but has nothing like VMware’s multiple snapshots. It does have an equivalent to VMware’s “linked clone” feature, and wizards ease the creation of VMs and disks. All told, I found VPC 07 intuitive and stocked with everything casual users need to manage programs that don’t like Vista.

Date thieves can’t steal what they can’t get to. That’s the principle behind Secure it Easy, which blocks access to your PC for all USB storage devices except those okayed by an administrator. On install, the software prompts you to examine the list of connected devices and mark those you trust. By default, the program issues alerts when it blocks access, but you can turn that off. The utility can also e-mail you whenever an untrusted device tries to connect.

The product doesn’t block FireWire or PC Card devices, however, and it offers no control over floppy disk, CD or DVD-ROM drives, or other storage devices. Secure it Easy also crashed more than once during testing, and the user interface, while attractive, has some quirks: Trying to change the trusted status of more than one device at a time, for example, may fail which the company acknowledges. On some settings pages, forget to click on Apply, and the changes you’ve made vanish. And other than a PDF manual, you’ll find no context-sensitive or online help system. Secure it Easy runs under Vista, but I’d expect a lot more from this, the most expensive endpoint security product I’ve reviewed.