Highrise is the latest addition to 37signals popular product line. It bills itself as a "Simple CRM" that helps you keep in touch. So what can Highrise do and is it the right solution for you or your business?

Features

Highrise is all about your contacts. There is extensive support for vCard and Basecamp accounts but it lacks the ability to import contacts from Outlook 2003 which is surprising. You can also import new contacts and keep track of current ones by forwarding emails to a Highrise dropbox address. If the contact is not the system it will be automatically added and the email message will be associated as a note. Contacts are woven throughout the rest of the application as you'd expect and integrate well with Tasks and Cases.

Tasks are presented just like they are in any other 37 signals app. It's basically a glorified to-do list that can also be associated with a category and due date. Tasks can be associated with a particular contact, note or case. As an occasional user of both Basecamp and Backpack you have to wonder if tasks or to-do lists in each 37 signals application are creating silos of data where you either choose to maintain tasks in one app or the other. If you currently have your company running on Basecamp and want the Contact features of Highrise you may run into the problem of maintaining multiple to-do lists or choosing where to aggregate your tasks.

Cases bring contacts, notes and tasks together to focus on a particular initiative. Basically Cases are to Highrise what Projects are to Basecamp. Cases look very similar to the Basecamp project dashboard where related items are presented in a blogish format.

Design

Highrise has the typical look and feel of a 37 signals app. The user experience is very similar to Basecamp; simple and efficient. The best design element in my opinion is the secondary navigation tabs located in the application header. As you travel through Highrise popular contacts and cases are thrown up as tabs for easier navigation later.

Pricing

Highrise is not a cheap service. The pricing model ranges from $12 per month for 3 users to an unlimited $149 per month account. The free account only has 2 users and is limited to 1 case. One thing that is clear from the model is that you are not paying for the file storage feature. File storage ranges from 250mb to 50GB and if you go by Amazon S3's now established standard of 15 cents/GB/Month then you're paying from $0.375 to $7.50 per month storage. Another issue with the pricing is the arbitrary limitations on users, cases and contacts.

Final Thoughts

Highrise is a slickly designed, somewhat pricey and simple contact management solution. The application seems best suited for a company of the size and complexity of 37signals. It seems they've designed a perfect app for their contact management problem and that makes sense. The best software generally comes from developing something for yourself. They've produced a very general and largely featureless solution to contacts. It's really up to the customer to decide how to best take advantage of Highrise.

Another part of me feels like 37signals is remixing the same thing over and over again: to-do lists, notes and people. In some ways Highrise is Basecamp without the concept of milestones. I'd also like to see better integration across their product line. Why not integrate these other task lists or their own calendaring system? Their answer would probably be something along the lines of: use one app and use only what it does well. How long can this last? When you have to keep logging into different apps and manage silos of data the user experience can become frustrating and confusing.