Microsoft Rewrites Its CRM Roadmap

ORLANDO — Microsoft has big plans to enhance its CRM suite through 2006. But don't expect its next major milestone, version 2.0, until mid-2005, company officials said here at its annual Microsoft Business Solutions conference on Monday.

Holly Holt, group product manager for MS CRM, provided press and analysts attending Microsoft's small/mid-size business (SMB) conference with an update to the company's CRM roadmap.

Microsoft has more than 1,600 MS CRM customers, company officials said, with each customer averaging 25 seats per installation. H&R Block is Microsoft's largest announced CRM customer, with 1,500 users, according to Microsoft. Microsoft says it has 400 independent software vendor partners who are adding extensions to and/or reselling its CRM product.

Microsoft shipped its 1.2 release of MS CRM in December 2003. In the third calendar quarter of 2004, Microsoft plans to release the first of its mobile add-ons to MS CRM, via a new module called "Sales for PocketPCs."

The Sales for PocketPC product is a stripped-down version of MS CRM optimized to run on PocketPC handhelds. It is focused on addressing sales force automation needs, and will provide users with a way to keep track of contacts and accounts, opportunities, activities and their notes, Holt explained. The Sales for PocketPCs module will run atop Microsoft's SQL Server for Windows CE database for mobile devices, Holt said. The Sales for PocketPC technology will allow users to synch up with their full-fledged MS CRM systems over a VPN, wireless LAN or connected LAN, but it won't run on GPRS wireless devices yet.

About 20 beta testers are working with a beta version of the Sales for PocketPC code (the beta version is called "CRM Mobile"). Pricing has yet to be announced.

At the same time as it is working on its mobile enhancements, Microsoft is readying the first beta of its MS CRM 2.0 release. Last fall, Microsoft told partners to expect MS CRM 2.0 to ship in the third quarter of 2004. Now, Microsoft executives are predicting the 2.0 release will ship in the second calendar quarter of 2005.

The 2.0 release will include new campaign-management, service-scheduling, marketing-automation and business-process-automation features, Holt said. Microsoft also will deliver additional customer-service enhancements for Outlook for mobile users simultaneous with the 2.0 release, according to Holt.

MS CRM 3.0 is on the Microsoft drawing board, as well, Holt said. The product will ship some time in Microsoft's fiscal 2006 (between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006), according to the current plan.

Microsoft says the MS CRM 3.0 release will be optimized to take advantage of the features that Microsoft is building into Longhorn client and server. But Microsoft won't delay MS CRM 3.0 if Longhorn runs late, Holt said.

CRM 3.0 will feature more tight integration with Microsoft Office and provide "end-to-end business-process automation," according to Redmond's roadmap. As part of the CRM 3.0 release, Microsoft will deliver a "unified CRM client" for Office 12 (the version of Office due in the Longhorn timeframe) and Windows; more customer self-service capabilities; and migration features/path to Green, which is Microsoft's built-from-scratch ERP suite for SMBs that is due out in the Longhorn timeframe, as well.

This article originally was published on microsoftwatch.com

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Dev Source.