Microsoft Business Solutions has started commercialising its delayed CRM package in the US, but does not expect to release a European version until the second half of this year.
The software giant had originally promised to deliver the North American release, which is the first to be based on Microsofts .Net framework , at the end of last year, but the date slipped because of the need for more integration work.
This is the first product to come out of our Microsoft Business Framework initiative, our next generation of ERP applications that are built on .Net and XML services, Dean Carroll, business development director at Microsoft Business Solutions.
We intend to come out with a single global ERP [enterprise resource planning] , SCM [supply chain management] and CRM product, but will create different brands of product for very small customers, midsize and top end companies. We started the project a couple of years ago, but deliverables are about three years out, Mr. Carroll added.
The aim of the Microsoft Business Framework is to enable the company to assemble various components such as general ledger or sales force automation into the differently branded products and to license these components to resellers so they can sell white label versions.
The CRM product is our starting point and well build up from there. Our proposition is that ISVs [Independent Software Vendors] take our platform as a starting point and deliver a solution for a particular customer segment. We provide the plumbing, elements of application logic such as a workflow engine to move sales leads around, for example, and we generate a royalty from that, Mr. Carroll explained.
Microsofts CRM offering is currently available in two versions a Standard Edition, which costs about 400 euros per user, will be made available through resellers and can be accessed using its Outlook email package, Internet Explorer browser, and a Professional Suite Edition.
The Professional Suite, which costs 1,300 euros per user, includes more sophisticated functionality such as workflow rules. Microsoft also plans to release a software component in April to enable it to exchange data with the ERP packages it acquired from Great Plains and Navision.
2003-01-24
Source: CRM Forum
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