Microsoft-Outlook is a pretty amazing program. So much more than simply an e-mail client, it provides a task list, a powerful calendar with recurring scheduling capabilities, wonderful electronic sticky notes, mail-merge capability with MS-Word support and so much more.

The problem is, it is a little stingy with its data and doesn't like to share it with any of your employees unless you're willing to invest in the expense and headaches involved with running a Microsoft Exchange Server.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could use MS-Outlook to coordinate meeting across multiple peoples' calendars, share tasks and delegate project responsibilities right from Outlook even if you were working from the road? How about managing discussion groups, sharing documents, synchronizing updates and even creating an organization-wide shared contact list?

These are the kind of advantages that Fortune 2000 employees have at their fingertips every day and take for granted. But those less fortunate small business owners end up taking notes and sticking them all over their monitors, playing voice mail tag writing phone message on paper airplanes which they toss at their co-workers in the next cubicle.

Office automation, collaborative work tools, open data environment and remote access ? these are all buzzwords that appear in business magazines every day but whose functionality continues to elude the small business owner.

Does a small business's size mean that their clients are any less important than those of the big boys? Are sales contracts any less urgent? Are meetings any less productive? No, of course they're not. The problem is that high technology usually means big budget expenditures that the average small business owner cannot afford. Up until now, that is.

Sometimes it takes a small business to solve another small business's problem. And that's exactly what the folks at 4Team.com have done with their flagship product, 4Team for MS-Outlook.

Now any small business can be as competitive and productive as any big company with access to the same high quality communication, organization and collaborative tools that before now were only available to companies with large IT budgets.

Even better, 4Team supercharges MS-Outlook with all those, "Wouldn't it be nice," features without requiring Exchange Server and without any recurring licensing fees. In fact, 4Team is so inexpensive that you probably spend more on toner cartridges than you'll ever spend with this work-saving, profit-building innovation.

You simply select the number of users, pay the one-time paltry per-seat fee and you are good to go. Recognizing that the average small business person is going to look at all the features that 4Team offers and say, "Yea, right, when pigs fly," they even offer a 30-day, 100% free trial so you can see that it's all true.

Imagine how your efficiency will improve when you and your staff can drag and drop new shared projects into MS-Outlook and instantly add, delete or change team members, deliverables, priorities, due dates and even appoint project managers and team leaders.

How easy will it be to schedule meetings with your staff, even those who work remotely, when you can click one link and see all of their calendars side by side? Imagine your field sales or service people being able to duck into an Internet caf? or Starbucks?, pick up their email messages, update their calendar and electronically drop off their new orders with a simple point and click.

The features in 4Team for Outlook are so powerful that you'll forget you are using MS-Outlook. It's like layering a whole new level of efficiency onto your organization without the huge capital expenditure. Why not give it a try and see for yourself?

Copyright ? 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Get the most out of the software you use everyday. Check out the add-in software directory for more information on 4Team for Outlook and other great time saving Outlook add-in tools. Visit: http://www.find-small-business-software.com/outlook-addins.html - Also, be sure to check out my Exclusive, 100% free, 100% original content ecourses.