Introduction

Dynamics CRM 4.0 is the latest release of Microsoft’s customer relationship management (CRM) server application, which helps workers manage customer support, sales, and marketing and provides a platform for custom front-office solutions. This version delivers new features for hosting multiple organizations on shared servers and improved international support to better serve large, multinational organizations and service providers that host CRM solutions. However, service providers will soon be competing directly with Microsoft’s own CRM online service, and large organizations will continue to need custom development to tailor the product to their businesses.

CRM Increasingly Important

Dynamics CRM has evolved into an important product for Microsoft and the partners who resell and customize it. First released as Microsoft CRM in Jan. 2003, Dynamics CRM has garnered about 14,000 customers with over 600,000 seats as of the first quarter of 2008. About half of the product’s growth in 2007 was attributable to sales to enterprises, thanks in large part to the efforts of Microsoft’s systems integration partners, such as Avanade. (For a description of Avanade’s Dynamics CRM efforts, see the sidebar “Going Big with Dynamics CRM“.) Dynamics CRM also has been important for resellers because it drives adoption of products and technologies that it requires or integrates with, including SQL Server, Exchange Server, Outlook, and the Office suite.