Microsoft CRM strategy seen on target
Summary
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Last week, Microsoft announced some long-awaited, much-anticipated details about its new Microsoft Customer Relationship Management application.
Microsoft Customer Relationship Management is built on Microsoft .Net technology. Microsoft has been demonstrating the product for some time, and the demos are dazzling. Making effective use of Web services and tightly integrated to Microsoft Outlook, the application allows users to access information with a browser or to create e-mails using MSCRM information.
It is also an amazing demonstration of the .Net Smart Tag technology that allows users to seamlessly incorporate structured and unstructured information, or information from multiple systems, easily into a single document. The demonstration makes the creation of Requests For Quotes, dunning letters, purchase orders, and other common business documents look simple, and underscores just how much of a kluge existing methods really are.
Even though the product is designed for the midmarket, pricing is extremely affordable, ranging from $395 per user and $995 for the server for the Standard Sales level, to $1,295 per user and $1,990 for the server for the Professional Suite level. The product will be available late in 2002, and will be sold through Microsoft's existing distribution network.
The Hurwitz take: Hurwitz Group recently wrote that the announcement of Microsoft Customer Relationship Management was one of the biggest CRM-related events to occur in 2002, and this most recent round of announcements only reinforces that opinion.
While small businesses and the midmarket have been slow to adopt CRM, that has been more a function of the fact that suitable CRM applications have been unavailable until recently. Microsoft CRM is poised to achieve rapid penetration of this space. So far, everything looks right on the money--the technology, the functionality, the delivery, and the pricing.
Sharon Ward is vice president for enterprise applications at Hurwitz Group. Hurwitz first published this article on July 26, 2002.
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