Microsoft is changing the name of its on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) offering to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, according to a company official.
The product was previously called CRM Live.
Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, said in an e-mailed statement that the name change is meant to separate Microsoft's consumer lines from its offerings for businesses.
"In recent months, Microsoft has launched the new Online brand, with tremendous investment in and focus around on-demand technology for business users," the statement reads in part. "Whereas the Live brand is focused on consumers and small businesses, the Online brand is fully aligned with our existing Dynamics CRM strategy of delivering outstanding solutions for small businesses, midsized companies, and large enterprises."
"This is simply a name change; there is no change to the product release dates, target markets, channel strategy, or pricing," he added.
More than 500 early-access customers are using CRM Online and the product will be launched broadly across the U.S. and Canada in the second quarter, according to Wilson.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Microsoft CRM Plug-In from ASK Software Announced
By David Sims
TMCnet Contributing Editor
ASK Software has launched QoS-IT version 2, according to company officials, introducing the Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamic CRM service module plug-in for Managed Service Providers.
Melbourne-based ASK officials explain that QoS-IT is a process-based software product developed to "manage IT services on agreed Service Level Agreement signed between MSP and customer and managed by the Service Level Management process."
SLM is the process of measuring and monitoring service quality, using metrics such as performance, availability and customer satisfaction, relative to customer expectations, and "reporting results and taking action to ensure the quality stays within agreed upon parameters as defined by theSLA ," ASK officials say.
"Market researches show that for IT MSPs to manage and support the IT infrastructure of their customers, maintain long term relationships with customers and be profitable and efficient, they must adopt the best practices and guidance set out in well known standards such as ITIL & Microsoft MOF," says Ged Ellis, CEO of ASK.
"As most MSPs are Microsoft Partners, they have an access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM via Action Pack," says Ellis, "for less than $3,000. That includes 10 users license for QoS-IT and 12-month maintenance and support of the application."
Ellis compared the QoS-IT Service Catalog to a restaurant's menu, with a "list of all IT services the organization provides. Clients select from the Service Catalog the right mix of services that suit their needs based on their network infrastructure, response time and the hours and days of the week they wish to be serviced, which is then defined in the SLA Contract and recorded in QoS-IT."
ASK Software is a Philadelphia area software firm. It has been named to the Philadelphia Business Journal's "Top 25 Software Developers" list for three years running.
TMCnet Contributing Editor
ASK Software has launched QoS-IT version 2, according to company officials, introducing the Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamic CRM service module plug-in for Managed Service Providers.
Melbourne-based ASK officials explain that QoS-IT is a process-based software product developed to "manage IT services on agreed Service Level Agreement signed between MSP and customer and managed by the Service Level Management process."
SLM is the process of measuring and monitoring service quality, using metrics such as performance, availability and customer satisfaction, relative to customer expectations, and "reporting results and taking action to ensure the quality stays within agreed upon parameters as defined by theSLA ," ASK officials say.
"Market researches show that for IT MSPs to manage and support the IT infrastructure of their customers, maintain long term relationships with customers and be profitable and efficient, they must adopt the best practices and guidance set out in well known standards such as ITIL & Microsoft MOF," says Ged Ellis, CEO of ASK.
"As most MSPs are Microsoft Partners, they have an access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM via Action Pack," says Ellis, "for less than $3,000. That includes 10 users license for QoS-IT and 12-month maintenance and support of the application."
Ellis compared the QoS-IT Service Catalog to a restaurant's menu, with a "list of all IT services the organization provides. Clients select from the Service Catalog the right mix of services that suit their needs based on their network infrastructure, response time and the hours and days of the week they wish to be serviced, which is then defined in the SLA Contract and recorded in QoS-IT."
ASK Software is a Philadelphia area software firm. It has been named to the Philadelphia Business Journal's "Top 25 Software Developers" list for three years running.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Parallels and Microsoft CRM
Parallels has announced that its Parallels Automation data center product now supports Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
Parallels Automation provides what company officials call "a complete back-office infrastructure, so service providers can go to market and incorporate CRM into their service offerings."
The product is billed as having "both operational and business support systems" to help service providers use server resources. Using a single login, service providers can deliver integrated offerings that include multiple services such as hosted Microsoft Exchange, hosted Windows SharePoint Services and hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Service providers that already sell hosted Microsoft Exchange can use Parallels Automation to up-sell customers to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
"Parallels Automation for Dynamics CRM allows service providers to offer businesses an alternative to in-house CRM products," claims Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "This delivers the benefits of the Parallels Open Platform architecture combined with Dynamics CRM to help service providers tap into the hosted CRM opportunity and the broader software-as-a-service market."
“With more and more customers adopting on-demand CRM products, there’s no question this is among the fastest-growing market segments,” said John Zanni, director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft.
Parallels Automation provides what company officials call "a complete back-office infrastructure, so service providers can go to market and incorporate CRM into their service offerings."
The product is billed as having "both operational and business support systems" to help service providers use server resources. Using a single login, service providers can deliver integrated offerings that include multiple services such as hosted Microsoft Exchange, hosted Windows SharePoint Services and hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Service providers that already sell hosted Microsoft Exchange can use Parallels Automation to up-sell customers to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
"Parallels Automation for Dynamics CRM allows service providers to offer businesses an alternative to in-house CRM products," claims Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "This delivers the benefits of the Parallels Open Platform architecture combined with Dynamics CRM to help service providers tap into the hosted CRM opportunity and the broader software-as-a-service market."
“With more and more customers adopting on-demand CRM products, there’s no question this is among the fastest-growing market segments,” said John Zanni, director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft.
CRM Accelerators, Biz IT Pro Announces Joint Microsoft CRM Work
By David Sims
TMCnet Contributing Editor
The president of Business IT Professionals, Steve Noe, has announced that the company has partnered with CRM Accelerators to provide what he describes as "end-to-end CRM products on theMicrosoft ( News - Alert) Dynamics CRM platform for their clients."
CRM Accelerators, a Microsoft Certified Partner, will handle infrastructure requirements, customization, deployment strategies, maintenance, and custom development to design their client's CRM product. Once the product is deployed, a consultant from Cary, North Carolina-based Biz IT Pro will provide either training for the client or courses from Microsoft's official curriculum.
"With this partnership, we are able to provide the best product to our clients from start to finish," stated Noe.
CRM Accelerators works on implementations of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and with Microsoft Partners who are implementing CRM for themselves or for their customers. They provide Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation, deployment, and custom development services to small to mid-size businesses throughout the US.
Late last year Biz IT Pro announced the completion a series of training sessions for SourceMedia, a New York-based B2B publishing company.
Steve Noe conducted CRM training to more than 70 of SourceMedia's sales staff. The sessions dealt with the benefits CRM provides to their sales success and productivity, an working understanding of Dynamics CRM and Source Media's customizations and processes to integrate CRM into their day to day sales, according to Biz IT officials.
"We had implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM, but our sales people didn't understand how to use the new system." said Azam Abuzar, senior director of corporate systems for SourceMedia. "Steve gave us the education we needed to use our CRM."
In August Biz IT Pro announced they will develop a CRM product, based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, for QRPS, an administrative consulting firm.
Biz IT Pro will use Scribe Insight, an end-to-end integration tool for converting data from ACT! to Microsoft Dynamics, to improve productivity and client experiences for QRPS.
TMCnet Contributing Editor
The president of Business IT Professionals, Steve Noe, has announced that the company has partnered with CRM Accelerators to provide what he describes as "end-to-end CRM products on theMicrosoft ( News - Alert) Dynamics CRM platform for their clients."
CRM Accelerators, a Microsoft Certified Partner, will handle infrastructure requirements, customization, deployment strategies, maintenance, and custom development to design their client's CRM product. Once the product is deployed, a consultant from Cary, North Carolina-based Biz IT Pro will provide either training for the client or courses from Microsoft's official curriculum.
"With this partnership, we are able to provide the best product to our clients from start to finish," stated Noe.
CRM Accelerators works on implementations of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and with Microsoft Partners who are implementing CRM for themselves or for their customers. They provide Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation, deployment, and custom development services to small to mid-size businesses throughout the US.
Late last year Biz IT Pro announced the completion a series of training sessions for SourceMedia, a New York-based B2B publishing company.
Steve Noe conducted CRM training to more than 70 of SourceMedia's sales staff. The sessions dealt with the benefits CRM provides to their sales success and productivity, an working understanding of Dynamics CRM and Source Media's customizations and processes to integrate CRM into their day to day sales, according to Biz IT officials.
"We had implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM, but our sales people didn't understand how to use the new system." said Azam Abuzar, senior director of corporate systems for SourceMedia. "Steve gave us the education we needed to use our CRM."
In August Biz IT Pro announced they will develop a CRM product, based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, for QRPS, an administrative consulting firm.
Biz IT Pro will use Scribe Insight, an end-to-end integration tool for converting data from ACT! to Microsoft Dynamics, to improve productivity and client experiences for QRPS.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Microsoft CRM Takes on Salesforce.com
Microsoft is directly challenging Salesforce.com with its new hosted CRM service, which is in beta testing now and should be launched for general sign-up in the middle of this year. All indications are that Microsoft will launch a full-scale attack, with extremely aggressive pricing: Salesforce.com's similar offerings cost about 50 percent more.
Microsoft Relevant Products/Services offered a sneak peek of the newest version of its CRM application, Dynamics CRM 4.0, at Convergence 2008, a meeting of Microsoft Dynamics users. The release, due this spring, is aimed at small and midsize businesses with what analysts say is extremely aggressive pricing.
One major focus of the new release is managing compliance obligations, providing what Microsoft calls a "one-stop shop for compliance-related information." CRM 4.0 also includes enhanced global capabilities (such as multiple language support) that will give international businesses real-time visibility into operations such as overseas inventory of global locations.
Chris Alliegro, lead analyst with Directions on Microsoft (an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy and technology), said that Dynamics offers a big advantage over competing products: a familiar interface. "If you're a Microsoft shop, it's an interface you're already familiar with. Having your CRM functionality visible, accessible, and built into Outlook is a huge selling point for Microsoft."
Salesforce.com: The One To Beat
Alliegro told us that Microsoft is directly challenging Salesforce.com with its new hosted CRM service, which is in beta testing now and should be launched for general sign-up in the middle of this year. All indications are that Microsoft will launch a full-scale attack.
"They're coming at the market very aggressively," particularly in terms of pricing, Alliegro said. One version of the hosted product is expected to be $44 per month per subscriber, and $15 higher for the more enhanced version. (The main differences between the two versions, he said, are storage Relevant Products/Services amount and the ability to support offline synchronizations.) He said that Salesforce.com's similar offerings cost about 50 percent more.
"It's fair to ask if Microsoft can even make money at that price point. That's something they're going to learn. I think that companies getting into this kind of business are caught off-guard by how small the margins actually are -- it's a much smaller-margin business than selling packaged software," Alliegro said.
But Microsoft has both the deep pockets and the staying power Relevant Products/Services needed to compete. "Microsoft is the kind of company that has proved that if it believes in something, it's willing to lose money on it for a long time to win the market, and they're a company that's as well positioned as any company to operate in that kind of environment," Alliegro said.
The Future of xRM
Alliegro noted that Microsoft has been talking up the idea of "xRM," where its CRM platform can have far more uses than simply managing sales, customer service and marketing. "It's also a generic platform that can be tailored to a wide range of functions or applications that are managing relations," Alliegro said. For example, the U.S. Air Force used the platform to build an application to help them manage personnel deployment -- which is not a customer-service application.
Microsoft will be looking hard at ways to exploit xRM and find other uses -- and customers -- for it. "They haven't said anything about what that functionality might be, but they hinted that they're thinking about that. If Microsoft starts to work through the feature specs of the next version, it wouldn't surprise me to see other functional domain areas surfacing, where they're taking this product and trying to make it specific to some applications other than strictly CRM."
Microsoft Relevant Products/Services offered a sneak peek of the newest version of its CRM application, Dynamics CRM 4.0, at Convergence 2008, a meeting of Microsoft Dynamics users. The release, due this spring, is aimed at small and midsize businesses with what analysts say is extremely aggressive pricing.
One major focus of the new release is managing compliance obligations, providing what Microsoft calls a "one-stop shop for compliance-related information." CRM 4.0 also includes enhanced global capabilities (such as multiple language support) that will give international businesses real-time visibility into operations such as overseas inventory of global locations.
Chris Alliegro, lead analyst with Directions on Microsoft (an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy and technology), said that Dynamics offers a big advantage over competing products: a familiar interface. "If you're a Microsoft shop, it's an interface you're already familiar with. Having your CRM functionality visible, accessible, and built into Outlook is a huge selling point for Microsoft."
Salesforce.com: The One To Beat
Alliegro told us that Microsoft is directly challenging Salesforce.com with its new hosted CRM service, which is in beta testing now and should be launched for general sign-up in the middle of this year. All indications are that Microsoft will launch a full-scale attack.
"They're coming at the market very aggressively," particularly in terms of pricing, Alliegro said. One version of the hosted product is expected to be $44 per month per subscriber, and $15 higher for the more enhanced version. (The main differences between the two versions, he said, are storage Relevant Products/Services amount and the ability to support offline synchronizations.) He said that Salesforce.com's similar offerings cost about 50 percent more.
"It's fair to ask if Microsoft can even make money at that price point. That's something they're going to learn. I think that companies getting into this kind of business are caught off-guard by how small the margins actually are -- it's a much smaller-margin business than selling packaged software," Alliegro said.
But Microsoft has both the deep pockets and the staying power Relevant Products/Services needed to compete. "Microsoft is the kind of company that has proved that if it believes in something, it's willing to lose money on it for a long time to win the market, and they're a company that's as well positioned as any company to operate in that kind of environment," Alliegro said.
The Future of xRM
Alliegro noted that Microsoft has been talking up the idea of "xRM," where its CRM platform can have far more uses than simply managing sales, customer service and marketing. "It's also a generic platform that can be tailored to a wide range of functions or applications that are managing relations," Alliegro said. For example, the U.S. Air Force used the platform to build an application to help them manage personnel deployment -- which is not a customer-service application.
Microsoft will be looking hard at ways to exploit xRM and find other uses -- and customers -- for it. "They haven't said anything about what that functionality might be, but they hinted that they're thinking about that. If Microsoft starts to work through the feature specs of the next version, it wouldn't surprise me to see other functional domain areas surfacing, where they're taking this product and trying to make it specific to some applications other than strictly CRM."
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Microsoft CRM reforms sales, marketing for IOM
Insurance Outsourcing Managers (IOM), a leading provider of financial services to the short-term insurance market, has implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM to provide access to its customer information for improved management of its various sales processes and marketing activities.
IOM provides financing of annual insurance premiums, a debit-order collection facility, broker acquisition financing as well as management of outsourced portfolios on behalf of clients.
Its services cater mostly to the short-term insurance industry and, in particular, the broker community.
Business situation
IOM previously relied on multiple line of operational business systems to access customer information as well. While these proprietary systems are responsible for the transactional components of IOM's business, they were not designed to cater for information management from a sales and marketing perspective.
"We identified the need for a customer relationship management system that could provide information for sales and marketing purposes, specifically to improve the management of our client relationships, identify cross-sell opportunities between our various product lines as well as provide intelligence to penetrate new market sectors," explains Ian du Toit, director at IOM.
"As our operational systems run separately, it was impossible to identify situations in which a client may, for example, be using one of our products, but not others."
CRM would provide a consolidated "dashboard" view of client information as well as insight into the depth of product and service utilisation of each customer. This would ensure new market opportunities could be identified, while also offering additional product benefits to IOM's customer base.
CRM would further ensure a more structured approach to IOM's sales management processes, which were largely paper-based prior to the implementation. "From a business perspective, this would bring about improved productivity, greater and more effective control over legal compliance and the ability to view the stage of each of sale," says Du Toit.
CRM simplifies sales management and administration
IOM has a specific flow for each of its sales processes, from proposal, acceptance and quotes, to documentation, risk, compliance and payments, for example. Du Toit adds that the financial services industry is also highly regulated in terms of the national credit act and specialised legal requirements.
"Our sales processes vary from one product to the next, which introduces a number of complexities in the workflow requirements for each of these processes. CRM was introduced to streamline sales and ensure improved management control over each of the different sales cycles," he says.
"CRM has further given us the ability to allocate tasks to different people during each stage of the sales process. This has assisted in managing the process better, while also providing accurate information on the stage of each sale, the products involved and information on individual agreements."
While IOM's target market is fairly narrow, products differ in terms of their inherent structure. Each product also has a unique sales drive associated with it. "The CRM solution caters to each product specifically and to all products simultaneously," Du Toit adds.
Single view of business information
He says IOM now has a single view of all clients and related sales activities. "We have a better overview of sales productivity at any given point in time, firmer control over our sales processes and more information available from a general sales perspective to more effectively manage client relationships.
"The single most important benefit has been the ability to obtain a dashboard view of our entire sales environment, which branches out to all areas of our business."
While the first phase of the project brought a greater focus to customisation of the solution and ensuring user acceptance, the aim is to use information analysis and built-in reporting capabilities to further improve efficiencies throughout the sales and marketing environment.
"Our future intention is to derive greater benefit from the system to market more efficiently to our existing client base and, through access to client profiles and related geographical information, explore new market opportunities going forward.
"Microsoft CRM has addressed our business need in a single packaged application. It easily integrates into our existing Microsoft environment and familiar applications such as Microsoft Outlook, for example. The solution was also customisable, and so catered effectively to IOM's highly specialised requirements," Du Toit says.
He adds that IS Partners presented a solution that demonstrated a thorough understanding of IOM's business. IS Partners' technical and product expertise further ensured the system was customised and implemented to IOM's specifications. "It's a matter of understanding both the business environment and business needs intensively, while also having an understanding of the CRM product and combining these capabilities to IOM's advantage."
IOM provides financing of annual insurance premiums, a debit-order collection facility, broker acquisition financing as well as management of outsourced portfolios on behalf of clients.
Its services cater mostly to the short-term insurance industry and, in particular, the broker community.
Business situation
IOM previously relied on multiple line of operational business systems to access customer information as well. While these proprietary systems are responsible for the transactional components of IOM's business, they were not designed to cater for information management from a sales and marketing perspective.
"We identified the need for a customer relationship management system that could provide information for sales and marketing purposes, specifically to improve the management of our client relationships, identify cross-sell opportunities between our various product lines as well as provide intelligence to penetrate new market sectors," explains Ian du Toit, director at IOM.
"As our operational systems run separately, it was impossible to identify situations in which a client may, for example, be using one of our products, but not others."
CRM would provide a consolidated "dashboard" view of client information as well as insight into the depth of product and service utilisation of each customer. This would ensure new market opportunities could be identified, while also offering additional product benefits to IOM's customer base.
CRM would further ensure a more structured approach to IOM's sales management processes, which were largely paper-based prior to the implementation. "From a business perspective, this would bring about improved productivity, greater and more effective control over legal compliance and the ability to view the stage of each of sale," says Du Toit.
CRM simplifies sales management and administration
IOM has a specific flow for each of its sales processes, from proposal, acceptance and quotes, to documentation, risk, compliance and payments, for example. Du Toit adds that the financial services industry is also highly regulated in terms of the national credit act and specialised legal requirements.
"Our sales processes vary from one product to the next, which introduces a number of complexities in the workflow requirements for each of these processes. CRM was introduced to streamline sales and ensure improved management control over each of the different sales cycles," he says.
"CRM has further given us the ability to allocate tasks to different people during each stage of the sales process. This has assisted in managing the process better, while also providing accurate information on the stage of each sale, the products involved and information on individual agreements."
While IOM's target market is fairly narrow, products differ in terms of their inherent structure. Each product also has a unique sales drive associated with it. "The CRM solution caters to each product specifically and to all products simultaneously," Du Toit adds.
Single view of business information
He says IOM now has a single view of all clients and related sales activities. "We have a better overview of sales productivity at any given point in time, firmer control over our sales processes and more information available from a general sales perspective to more effectively manage client relationships.
"The single most important benefit has been the ability to obtain a dashboard view of our entire sales environment, which branches out to all areas of our business."
While the first phase of the project brought a greater focus to customisation of the solution and ensuring user acceptance, the aim is to use information analysis and built-in reporting capabilities to further improve efficiencies throughout the sales and marketing environment.
"Our future intention is to derive greater benefit from the system to market more efficiently to our existing client base and, through access to client profiles and related geographical information, explore new market opportunities going forward.
"Microsoft CRM has addressed our business need in a single packaged application. It easily integrates into our existing Microsoft environment and familiar applications such as Microsoft Outlook, for example. The solution was also customisable, and so catered effectively to IOM's highly specialised requirements," Du Toit says.
He adds that IS Partners presented a solution that demonstrated a thorough understanding of IOM's business. IS Partners' technical and product expertise further ensured the system was customised and implemented to IOM's specifications. "It's a matter of understanding both the business environment and business needs intensively, while also having an understanding of the CRM product and combining these capabilities to IOM's advantage."
There’s more than one way to make Microsoft software ’serviceable’
Microsoft’s Software+Services (S+S) strategy comes in many guises. At its Convergence 2008 conference in Orlando this week for its business-applications customers and partners, Microsoft highlighted yet another one of its S+S forms: Third-party service extensions to its on-premise software.
Microsoft’s business applications include four different ERP suites, plus its Dynamics CRM offering. Microsoft has made noises about delivering versions of its Axapta, Great Plains, Solomon and Navision ERP products that will be multi-tenant and Microsoft-hosted (with no firm due dates so far). And Dynamics CRM 4.0, the latest version of Microsoft’s CRM product, can be deployed by customers in on-premise, partner-hosted and/or Microsoft-hosted configurations.
(Microsoft reconfirmed this week that its Dynamics CRM Live 4.0 release will be “broadly accessible” in the spring of 2008. Not sure if that is Microspeak for moving from beta to final, or just talking about a broader beta….)
At the Convergence conference on March 12, Microsoft announced that it also would make available paid service extensions to its on-premise Microsoft ERP and CRM products. (I haven’t seen prices for these published anywhere yet. I have a question in to Microsoft about pricing.) The services unveiled today:
* Payment service: Fraud prevention technology from PayPal and Chase Paymentech Solutions, for those using credit cards.
* Marketplace service: Integration with eBay allows customers to sell their products on eBay as well as through their own Web stores and offline channels.
* Keyword marketing service: Campaign tracking and management for search engine marketing (via Microsoft’s adCenter, I am assuming).
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has unveiled service extensions to its software. Last year, the company rolled out a number of third-party services (including credit-card processing, marketplace services and payroll services) to its Office Accounting Express 2007 product.
And earlier this year, Microsoft announced it would follow a similar strategy for its Office Live Small Business service. (So, in this case, we’re talking services extensions to a service, rather than software.)
Paid extensions to Microsoft’s recently consolidated SKU of Office Live Small Business include Store Manager, a hosted e-commerce offering from Microsoft for $39.95 per month, that will help customers sell products on their own site, as well as on eBay; custom domain name and e-mail support, which will provide customers with private domain-name registration, plus 100 company-branded e-mail addresses, each with 5 GB of storage. Microsoft is offering that service for free for the first year and $14.95 per year after that.
Are any of these kinds of Microsoft and third-party service extensions of interest to you users of Microsoft business applications?
Microsoft’s business applications include four different ERP suites, plus its Dynamics CRM offering. Microsoft has made noises about delivering versions of its Axapta, Great Plains, Solomon and Navision ERP products that will be multi-tenant and Microsoft-hosted (with no firm due dates so far). And Dynamics CRM 4.0, the latest version of Microsoft’s CRM product, can be deployed by customers in on-premise, partner-hosted and/or Microsoft-hosted configurations.
(Microsoft reconfirmed this week that its Dynamics CRM Live 4.0 release will be “broadly accessible” in the spring of 2008. Not sure if that is Microspeak for moving from beta to final, or just talking about a broader beta….)
At the Convergence conference on March 12, Microsoft announced that it also would make available paid service extensions to its on-premise Microsoft ERP and CRM products. (I haven’t seen prices for these published anywhere yet. I have a question in to Microsoft about pricing.) The services unveiled today:
* Payment service: Fraud prevention technology from PayPal and Chase Paymentech Solutions, for those using credit cards.
* Marketplace service: Integration with eBay allows customers to sell their products on eBay as well as through their own Web stores and offline channels.
* Keyword marketing service: Campaign tracking and management for search engine marketing (via Microsoft’s adCenter, I am assuming).
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has unveiled service extensions to its software. Last year, the company rolled out a number of third-party services (including credit-card processing, marketplace services and payroll services) to its Office Accounting Express 2007 product.
And earlier this year, Microsoft announced it would follow a similar strategy for its Office Live Small Business service. (So, in this case, we’re talking services extensions to a service, rather than software.)
Paid extensions to Microsoft’s recently consolidated SKU of Office Live Small Business include Store Manager, a hosted e-commerce offering from Microsoft for $39.95 per month, that will help customers sell products on their own site, as well as on eBay; custom domain name and e-mail support, which will provide customers with private domain-name registration, plus 100 company-branded e-mail addresses, each with 5 GB of storage. Microsoft is offering that service for free for the first year and $14.95 per year after that.
Are any of these kinds of Microsoft and third-party service extensions of interest to you users of Microsoft business applications?
Monday, March 10, 2008
Microsoft CRM Vendor Tectura Partners with SalesCentric
Tectura Corporation, a vendor of Microsoft Dynamics products, has chosen to partner with SalesCentric in offering Relationship Charts to their mid-market companies and large enterprise division CRM customers.
Relationship Charts is an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics CRM allowing account managers to view the relationships within a prospect's organization, including vendors and suppliers, before the deal has passed. It integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, meaning users already familiar with the CRM package will require minimal training.
John McKeague, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Practice Lead at Tectura, said relationships are supported by the charts, allowing salespeople to "store information on their contacts and accounts such as their personalities and personal relationships."
Last summer Tectura announced that it had achieved the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics standard for its Tectura Process Manufacturing product.
The Certified for Microsoft Dynamics program aims to extend the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem by building a portfolio of Certified for Microsoft Dynamics software products. Since early 2007, Tectura had participated in a pilot of this program.
The Certified for Microsoft Dynamics software product test verifies compatibility of the partner's software product with the Microsoft Dynamics platform upon which it runs and that is supported by processes and documentation. In addition, Certified for Microsoft Dynamics products require that at least 10 clients have deployed the same version level of the software product and are willing to recommend it.
Tectura Process Manufacturing has been validated in this program as a certified packaged software product, having both passed Microsoft's toughest compatibility tests in relation to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and having been recommended by clients based on its ability to support key business process manufacturing processes.
"Tectura is committed to continue the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics testing process for our global industry products, illustrating our deep integration with Microsoft's ERP products in support of our clients' business environments," said Tom Galambos, corporate vice president of Tectura Global and Industry Solutions.
Last winter Tectura, a vendor of Microsoft business products to mid-market companies and larger enterprises, acquired Euroinfo Systems, an Indian Microsoft Dynamics partner and international IT services provider.
"With a Development Center of Excellence in New Delhi (Noida), India, EIS provides enterprise IT solutions and services in support of offshore and onsite development," the company says.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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Relationship Charts is an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics CRM allowing account managers to view the relationships within a prospect's organization, including vendors and suppliers, before the deal has passed. It integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, meaning users already familiar with the CRM package will require minimal training.
John McKeague, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Practice Lead at Tectura, said relationships are supported by the charts, allowing salespeople to "store information on their contacts and accounts such as their personalities and personal relationships."
Last summer Tectura announced that it had achieved the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics standard for its Tectura Process Manufacturing product.
The Certified for Microsoft Dynamics program aims to extend the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem by building a portfolio of Certified for Microsoft Dynamics software products. Since early 2007, Tectura had participated in a pilot of this program.
The Certified for Microsoft Dynamics software product test verifies compatibility of the partner's software product with the Microsoft Dynamics platform upon which it runs and that is supported by processes and documentation. In addition, Certified for Microsoft Dynamics products require that at least 10 clients have deployed the same version level of the software product and are willing to recommend it.
Tectura Process Manufacturing has been validated in this program as a certified packaged software product, having both passed Microsoft's toughest compatibility tests in relation to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and having been recommended by clients based on its ability to support key business process manufacturing processes.
"Tectura is committed to continue the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics testing process for our global industry products, illustrating our deep integration with Microsoft's ERP products in support of our clients' business environments," said Tom Galambos, corporate vice president of Tectura Global and Industry Solutions.
Last winter Tectura, a vendor of Microsoft business products to mid-market companies and larger enterprises, acquired Euroinfo Systems, an Indian Microsoft Dynamics partner and international IT services provider.
"With a Development Center of Excellence in New Delhi (Noida), India, EIS provides enterprise IT solutions and services in support of offshore and onsite development," the company says.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users. Today’s featured white paper is Migrating Your Messaging System, brought to you by Active Voice.
CRM-Enabling at MarketNet, Experlogix and Microsoft CRM, Soffront CRM, Agresso's ERP Survey
Tectura Corporation, a vendor of Microsoft Dynamics products, has chosen to partner with SalesCentric in offering Relationship Charts to their mid-market companies and large enterprise division CRM customers.
Relationship Charts is an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics CRM allowing account managers to view the relationships within a prospect's organization, including vendors and suppliers, before the deal has passed. It integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, meaning users already familiar with the CRM package will require minimal training.
John McKeague, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Practice Lead at Tectura, said relationships are supported by the charts, allowing salespeople to "store information on their contacts and accounts such as their personalities and personal relationships."
Mid-market CRM vendor Soffront Software has announced that recruitment organization PrincetonOne has adopted Soffront CRM to enhance marketing efforts. "We were looking for a marketing automation product that would help us keep track of our customer's buying habits and increase our communication with customers," explained Megan Graham, director of marketing.
According to Graham, PrincetonOne is using Soffront to "create a marketing database that tracks all customer communication and marketing efforts. We have imported all of our client information into Soffront, and are creating customized surveys." She said the CRM tool's query manager lets the firm "narrow down specific individuals for targeted marketing messages."
The survey module lets PrincetonOne "send out regular surveys to customers, clients, and candidates. Soffront provides us with a customized survey template that is branded appropriately and contains links to our Web site.
Relationship Charts is an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics CRM allowing account managers to view the relationships within a prospect's organization, including vendors and suppliers, before the deal has passed. It integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, meaning users already familiar with the CRM package will require minimal training.
John McKeague, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Practice Lead at Tectura, said relationships are supported by the charts, allowing salespeople to "store information on their contacts and accounts such as their personalities and personal relationships."
Mid-market CRM vendor Soffront Software has announced that recruitment organization PrincetonOne has adopted Soffront CRM to enhance marketing efforts. "We were looking for a marketing automation product that would help us keep track of our customer's buying habits and increase our communication with customers," explained Megan Graham, director of marketing.
According to Graham, PrincetonOne is using Soffront to "create a marketing database that tracks all customer communication and marketing efforts. We have imported all of our client information into Soffront, and are creating customized surveys." She said the CRM tool's query manager lets the firm "narrow down specific individuals for targeted marketing messages."
The survey module lets PrincetonOne "send out regular surveys to customers, clients, and candidates. Soffront provides us with a customized survey template that is branded appropriately and contains links to our Web site.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Microsoft CRM Live Services Offered by IBizInitiatives
By David Sims
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Internet Business Initiatives of Lenexa, Kansas, a Microsoft (News - Alert) Gold Certified Partner, has announced a program of service offerings for users of Microsoft's hosted CRM Live.
IBizInitiatives has created a presence at EasyCRMLive.com for its products for assisting organizations with their CRM Live installation. Catering to users who have been able to sign up for the service without any professional technology assistance, iBizInitiatives will provide focused, packaged customization products at fixed prices "that make the benefits easy for business people to grasp," according to company officials.
Jerry Weinstock, Chief Business Technology Strategist, said "we will speak to the users in business terms and offer them a menu of customization products that will reduce their risk, simplify the decision making process, and expedite the delivery of the CRM system to look just like they want it to."
The Microsoft Rolling Thunder Launch Tour is a 22-city tour highlighting the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Each half-day event will provide attendees with product information about the new CRM 4.0 and its newest integrations.
Interested parties should attend one of the following concerts -- er, session dates:
March 6 - Atlanta and Orlando,
March 18 - Los Angeles and New York City,
March 20 - Boston and Orange County, California,
March 25 - Charlotte, N.C. and Kansas City,
March 27 - Indianapolis and Minneapolis,
April 1 - Dallas and Detroit (well, Southfield),
April 3 - Denver and Chicago (uh, try Schaumburg),
April 8 - Seattle and Philadelphia,
April 10 - San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and
April 17 - Phoenix.
About a month ago Technology Management Concepts, a Microsoft Gold partner and technology consulting firm, announced the availability of Microsoft CRM and CRM implementation services in addition to their current Dynamics GP offering in the ERP space.
(The other) TMC (News - Alert) has coordinated their product launch with Microsoft's release of CRM 4.0 this January.
"We have seen interest in the Customer Relationship Management area at our customer sites," said Jennifer Harris, Director of Professional Services at TMC.
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Internet Business Initiatives of Lenexa, Kansas, a Microsoft (News - Alert) Gold Certified Partner, has announced a program of service offerings for users of Microsoft's hosted CRM Live.
IBizInitiatives has created a presence at EasyCRMLive.com for its products for assisting organizations with their CRM Live installation. Catering to users who have been able to sign up for the service without any professional technology assistance, iBizInitiatives will provide focused, packaged customization products at fixed prices "that make the benefits easy for business people to grasp," according to company officials.
Jerry Weinstock, Chief Business Technology Strategist, said "we will speak to the users in business terms and offer them a menu of customization products that will reduce their risk, simplify the decision making process, and expedite the delivery of the CRM system to look just like they want it to."
The Microsoft Rolling Thunder Launch Tour is a 22-city tour highlighting the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Each half-day event will provide attendees with product information about the new CRM 4.0 and its newest integrations.
Interested parties should attend one of the following concerts -- er, session dates:
March 6 - Atlanta and Orlando,
March 18 - Los Angeles and New York City,
March 20 - Boston and Orange County, California,
March 25 - Charlotte, N.C. and Kansas City,
March 27 - Indianapolis and Minneapolis,
April 1 - Dallas and Detroit (well, Southfield),
April 3 - Denver and Chicago (uh, try Schaumburg),
April 8 - Seattle and Philadelphia,
April 10 - San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and
April 17 - Phoenix.
About a month ago Technology Management Concepts, a Microsoft Gold partner and technology consulting firm, announced the availability of Microsoft CRM and CRM implementation services in addition to their current Dynamics GP offering in the ERP space.
(The other) TMC (News - Alert) has coordinated their product launch with Microsoft's release of CRM 4.0 this January.
"We have seen interest in the Customer Relationship Management area at our customer sites," said Jennifer Harris, Director of Professional Services at TMC.
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