Microsoft brings CRM 3.0 launch date forward

Rob writes "The launch date for Microsoft CRM 3.0 has shifted again, and the application is now set to launch in December instead of early next year as was previously planned. Version 3.0 was originally scheduled to be released to manufacturing in March 2006, but was then pulled back so it would be generally available in January 2006. Now the release is slated for general availability in early December, although that only applies to the English version. Foreign language versions will follow. The earlier release date is a result of a combination of conservative guidance and Microsoft being ahead of its testing milestones. Several hundred partners have been testing the code and providing feedback since September, and there are also several early-adopter customer."

Comments

wow

[grub]

12 minutes and no comments. For MS' sake I hope CRM 3.0 (whatever that is) is more successful.

wtf is crm?

[Doctor Crumb]

"Customer Relationship Management", apparently. Though that doesn't really explain what is actually *does*...

Re:wtf is crm?

[hey!]

Though that doesn't really explain what is actually *does*...

Basically everything you need to make sure you will continue to enjoy a paycheck in quarters to come, presuming your mousetrap is not sufficiently superior that you have to beat customers off with a stick. These include: tracking prospective customers and determining if they are potentially good customers ("qualification"), managing commitments made to current customers, and following up on opportunities for new business with existing customers.

If you don't have to worry about these things, you are fortunate indeed. If nobody in your company is thinking about these things, then you should keep your resume up to date.

Re:wtf is crm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing Micro$oft, Consumer Restrictions Management. ;)

Re:wtf is crm?

[Jon Peterson]

Think of it as a very large database of all the people and institutions your company does, has, or would like to do business with. The idea is that if a tech person goes to conference and meets a tech person from potential customer ACME Ltd, and learns that ACME Ltd have been having real trouble with Competitor Ltd's poorly documented API, then tech person can write that down in a database somewhere, and then sales person rings ACME Ltd, and just happens to emphasize how well documented your product is, and how you are offering an amazing upgrade discount to customers who switch from Competitor Ltd's products.

Rather like content management systems, the idea is better on paper than reality, and they are notoriously hard to implement.

It makes sense for MS to release such a beast, IMO, as it fits well with their 'integrate all our products with each other' philosophy.

Re:wtf is crm?

[fmwap]

The CSR's use the CRM for CSAT

CRM system

[greywar]

We're using a esynergy CRM system here at work. Its ok, but one of our complaints has been integration problems. Oh and the fact that its crashing a lot. The crashing issue seems to be unique to our compan however, so I expect it will get resolved soon. Anyways CRM systems are fairly complex, but ore importantly-they tend to be fairly specific to each organization, and often require customization. Can Microsoft work at that level? I have a hard time seeing it.

Hmm...

[dchamp]

Welcome to the official Slashdot "Nobody gives a rat's ass" thread.

Avalon Business Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

My company uses a CRM suite from Avalon Business Systems. We looked at a number of packages from Siebel, Microsoft, etc., but this one is the most flexible and easiest for our employees to use.

It also features some of the nicest AJAX I've seen.

Proof if proof were needed

[Flying pig]

Marketing: "We need a CRM module!"
Development: "Nobody wants CRM, anyway we're busy"
Marketing: "You will do it, only we can't be bothered to spec it out properly"
Development: "OK, here's your half-assed CRM system."
Sales: "Product can't be right, nobody wants it."
Slashdot: "CRM? Nobody gives a flying sexual intercourse."

Google, Amazon.com etc: "Oh yes they do, but it needs to be an in-house, business driven and tightly integrated solution, not some third party kludge. "

And I'd choose this over SugarCRM or vTiger. . .

[kimvette]

Because I love paying for Windows and Microsoft Exchange licenses, and having all of my data tied into proprietary formats? I'm doing all I can to look for a real open source alternative to Exchange to avoid exactly that situation because although Microsoft does make damn fine products (Exchange is great considering the feature set, you will never convince me otherwise) I am disliking their anti-customer stance and their vendor-lock mechanisms (keeping formats completely proprietary and EULAs forbidding reverse engineering of the formats - MY data - etc.) more and more every day.

So what did I do for a CRM solution? I looked at Microsoft CRM, which was a free ad-on for M$ Exchange/Outlook/SQL Server, and I looked at SugarCRM. The choice was clear and so we went with SugarCRM. I did not discover vTiger (a fork of SugarCRM) until after we implemented SugarCRM but it's been working out fine for us, and once I upgrade it to the latest version we will be able to get even more use out of it and hopefully get good processes (help tickets, etc.) into place in one centralized (and open and documented) location.

Re:And I'd choose this over SugarCRM or vTiger. .

[scumbaguk]

We tried sugar but the model didn't fit our buisness.

We spoke with many sales reps who tought the methology within sugar for moving people through the various sales stages didn't make correct sense.

We gave sugar a good go but ended up settling with salesforce.com. If sugar improves we will be right back there but for the time being it's a nice try but without a true understanding of how the buisness model realy works.

I'm interested to try out MS CRM and see if it's any good, also the possibilites of this being used as a shared hosted solution maybe.

As an aside, it's funny how many slashdoters are seemingly not in the IT industry, show by the fact they don't even know what a CRM system is. Not that I ever doubted it.

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