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Microsoft Offers Peek At Next-Gen CRM

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-a-taste dept.

4foot10 writes "As reported by VARBusiness.com, Microsoft's next release of its Dynamics CRM application, code-named 'Titan', is moving a little closer to completion. Today, the vendor is making the new software, which uses a single code base to support on-premise and software-as-a-service deployments, available to several hundred business partners for testing, giving them an early start on developing complementary solutions."

10 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. What's a CRM? by seebs · · Score: 5, Funny

    For those of us who haven't eaten alphabits in a few years, what's a CRM, and why do we care?

    --
    My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
    1. Re:What's a CRM? by Meatloaf+Surprise · · Score: 5, Funny

      Manages customer relations, duh

    2. Re:What's a CRM? by Henry+2.0 · · Score: 5, Informative

      From Wikipedia

      Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer information.

      There are three aspects of CRM which can each be implemented in isolation from each other:

      • Operational CRM- automation or support of customer processes that include a company's sales or service representative
      • Collaborative CRM- direct communication with customers that does not include a company's sales or service representative ("self service")
      • Analytical CRM- analysis of customer data for a broad range of purposes
      Full Article
    3. Re:What's a CRM? by mean+pun · · Score: 5, Funny
      Manages customer relations, duh

      You mean it sends them a Xmas card, goes to visit them from time to time, and if they are really good customers it takes them to dinner sometimes? Or is it more like the kind of software that walks into their shop and says `Really nice place you have here, pity if it would burn, eh? Luigi here is really disappointed with your negative attitude to us.'?

    4. Re:What's a CRM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ok, that sounds great ... but what does it DO?

    5. Re:What's a CRM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Crap Released by Microsoft

    6. Re:What's a CRM? by Linker3000 · · Score: 5, Funny

      CRM is one of a broad range of software applications that can be purchased off the shelf, obtained through Open Source channels or implemented by a software consultancy firm that spends a lot of time with you to determine your needs, develops a draft spec, agrees a stonkingly large fee and then sends a team of developers to live with you for many months, drinking your coffee, attempting to get off with the secretaries and hacking your vending machines.

      Soon, the consultancy company realises they have underestimated the complexity of your requirements and that it is going to take much longer to implement, but they demand more money and time on the basis that YOU have changed the spec. After an extended period of development, a highly-personalised software application is handed over to you and you soon discover that it works pretty much to specification but with quite a few rough edges that will be "dealt with as part of the 5-year snags process".

      The system is so complex to manage that the only people who can support it are the original developers - but they are mostly working elsewhere on other projects by now or have left to become 'independent consultants' advising other customers who are having terrible problems getting their CRM system to work properly due to poor implementation.

      Even though the software consultancy firm cannot support your system to your satisfaction, you are locked into a support contract that means you pay an annual fee to them for the rest of your life. Eventually you begin to abandon parts of the software "'cos it's quicker and easier to do it in a spreadsheet".

      --
      AT&ROFLMAO
  2. What's a customer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Manages customer relations, duh"

    Well thank God that open-source doesn't have that problem.

  3. and after *that*... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "which uses a single code base to support on-premise and software-as-a-service deployments"

    And after that, they're going to leverage their synergies!

  4. Re:Wikipedia says: by cyxxon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nah, it's not a marketing term, and not something even remotely connected to DRM. I am a CRM consultant (though not dealing with Microsoft's implementation, but rather SAP). Among the various aspects of business software, CRM is the part that helps a company get new contracts and keep good relations to their old customers. It is indeed (among others things) responsible for sending out Xmas cards, but also for sending new offers to old customers. You can build web shops for B2B and B2C with it, and you can track which of your customers are how "valuable" (i.e. purchase what and how much of it) and are the best targets for new campaigns for new products. This is a booming industry, my company (Germany, ~170 consultants) is currently looking for CRM consultants because everybody and their mother is realizing they need better ways to manage their customers then simply keeping them as debitors in their Enterprise Resource Planning system or as contacts in an Outlook system.