An update to Microsoft Customer Relationship Management (MSCRM), previously available only in North America and only for U.S. English, adds support for an additional eight languages and will be sold globally. MSCRM 1.2 also simplifies setup and adds support for recent Microsoft server releases, notably Small Business Server 2003, which could help some small businesses with limited IT budgets and expertise overcome reluctance to deploy the product. With these changes, and the ability to engage sales channels outside of North America, Microsoft hopes to spur uptake of MSCRM beyond the roughly 1,000 customers that have signed-on to date.

More Languages, Modest Improvements

MSCRM is a server application from the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) group that helps small and mid-size businesses manage customer relationships: sales and customer service personnel can record, track, and update customer interactions (such as sales leads or inquiries about service requests) using Outlook or a Web browser as the client. Although MSCRM is not a threat to enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) products from vendors like Siebel and SAP, Microsoft hopes to capitalize on the largely untapped small to mid-size business CRM market.

MSCRM has seen limited adoption since its early 2003 release. Microsoft claims about 1,000 customers have purchased and installed the product—a small number relative to the target market (businesses with 25 to 1,000 employees). More aggressive adoption has likely been hindered by a combination of MSCRM’s limited international availability and its version 1.0 status. Integration requirements and ongoing ownership costs could also play a role—MSCRM requires Windows Server, SQL Server, and Exchange, and most installations require customization and user training.

Thanks in part to its improved language support, MSCRM will now be marketed and sold in 47 countries. MSCRM 1.2 can also run on Small Business Server (SBS) 2003, which could simplify overall server infrastructure, reduce startup costs, and ease ongoing back-end operations. MSCRM 1.2 also offers enhancements in certain features and improves performance over the initial version. For example, synchronization between Outlook and MSCRM 1.2 is markedly faster, which could particularly help sales personnel working remotely over slow connections.

Despite these changes, certain deficiencies might hold back MSCRM adoption internationally. For example, although MSCRM will be marketed and sold in several Asian countries, the product offers no Asian language support. Furthermore, MSCRM 1.2 does not support multilingual installations (within a given MSCRM installation, only one of the supported languages is available) or multiple currencies, both of which could cause companies doing business in more than one country to defer adoption of the product.

Integration Up Next

Although customers of Microsoft’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business management products seem likely targets for MSCRM adoption, many of these products, including Solomon, Great Plains (GP) 7.5, Navision, and Axapta, do not integrate with MSCRM 1.2. (The product does, however, work with the older GP 7.0, and Microsoft will add support for Solomon and GP 7.5 in the first quarter of 2004.) Such business product integration is important because it could help companies connect CRM processes with internal business management functions. For example, a sales lead developed via MSCRM might result in an order for goods that could be automatically routed to and processed by the company’s Navision ERP solution.

Although Microsoft will add support for Solomon and GP 7.5 in MSCRM 1.2, integration with Navision is deferred until MSCRM 2.0, which the company plans to release in the first quarter of 2005. A date for MSCRM integration with Axapta, however, has not been announced. Consequently, Microsoft could see slow adoption among customers looking for integration with these products.

Availability and Resources

MSCRM 1.2 runs on Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003. The product also requires Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003; SQL Server 2000; and Exchange Server 2000 or Exchange Server 2003.

MSCRM 1.2 is currently available in North America in an English-language version and will be available on a worldwide basis in Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, International English, Italian, and Spanish in the first quarter of 2004.

MSCRM was recently made available through Microsoft’s volume licensing channels. For new customers it will cost between US$3,000 and US$50,000 for a typical MSCRM installation, depending on the edition chosen and the number of users. Existing MSCRM customers can upgrade to MSCRM 1.2 for free.

For more on MSCRM and volume licensing, see "MSCRM Leads Expansion of Small Business Channel" on page 20 of the Sept. 2003 Update.

For more detailed price and edition information, see the chart "MSCRM Price and Feature Matrix" on page 16 of the Aug. 2002 Update.

More information on MSCRM is available at www.microsoft.com/CRM.