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

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?

[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.

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.