Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Is Here

By DAVID SIMS

TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

Microsoft Corp. is announcing that its new CRM release, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, is actually currently in use in “a cross-section of its worldwide customer base,” including “small businesses, midsize companies and large enterprises,” and representing both “new customers and those that are upgrading from Microsoft CRM 1.2,” according to company officials.

"Microsoft Dynamics as a product line is not limiting itself to small and mid-sized businesses," Brad Wilson, general manager for Microsoft Dynamics told Reuters late last night. "Clearly CRM is an example of where we are going after large business in a very broad manner."

Industry observer Todd Bishop has reported that Microsoft will offer 3.0 “for a monthly subscription fee today, forging ahead with the company's new online strategy and trying to fend off a key rival.”

You can get it under a traditional software license (for a standard price), as Bishop says, which is Microsoft trying to horn in on salesforce.com, RightNow and NetSuite’s turf by offering a hosted version as well.

Microsoft is claiming happy customers at successful 3.0 installations at such companies as Volvo, Corillian and Perot Systems, as well as a Dominican Republic law firm, an Australian-based provider of on-site and wide- area paging systems and Whistler, British Columbia, the host of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

There’s the slew of integrators anxious to get their offerings up and running as well. Avanade Inc., a Microsoft integrator, has announced the availability of their Enterprise CRM products for health plans, financial services and customer care, using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

Mike Pazak, vice president of Enterprise Business Solutions at Avanade said the company would use Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 to “market our suite of enterprise-ready CRM applications,” focusing primarily on the health plans, financial services, and call center industries.

He said Avande would combine the Microsoft CRM product with offerings from their alliance partners GaleForce Solutions and Genesys.

Ascentium Corporation has announced that Tourism Whistler, the official sales and marketing organization for Whistler, British Columbia, has been chosen as a showcase customer for today's launch, according to Diane Mombourquette, vice president of Finance and Operations at Tourism Whistler.

Ascentium's CRM upgrade solution for Tourism Whistler, according to Ascentium officials, makes them “one of the first Microsoft CRM 3.0 customers worldwide featured at the introduction of the new customer relationship management suite.”

c360 Solutions, Inc. is also announing that its software product line, Productivity Packs for Microsoft CRM 3.0, is generally available. They’ll begin upgrading and delivering these through their network of over 450 authorized c360 partners around the world.

Of course Microsoft has to keep such industry partners and resellers such as c360 Ascentium and Avanade happy, a problem salesforce.com and the other hosted vendors don’t have. As Bishop explains, Microsoft isn’t offering 3.0 directly to business customers, which other hosted vendors are free to do and which makes the most sense, but are offering it “through its existing network of industry partners and resellers. Those partners, not Microsoft, will host the programs and offer them to end customers.”

This awkward, have-it-both-ways approach was predictably pilloried by the hosted, or “on-demand” vendors. "I think it really shows that Microsoft doesn't get what on-demand is all about," Phill Robinson, senior vice president of global marketing for salesforce.com told Bishop. "There's not a lot of advantage to customers for (Microsoft's) partners to do the hosting."

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]