CRM Release for Vista, Office 2007

An update to Dynamics CRM 3.0, Microsoft’s customer relationship management (CRM) application, will ensure compatibility with Office 2007 and Windows Vista. The release, which is planned for Dec. 2006, could improve product usability and provide an early showcase for Office 2007 and Vista. However, CRM customers probably won’t accelerate Office 2007 or Vista deployment because of the update.

Incremental Steps for Usability

The Dynamics CRM 3.0 update is primarily a compatibility release. It assures customers that the product will run properly with Office 2007 and Vista and will thus not interfere with plans to upgrade to those products.

Thanks mainly to features in Office 2007 and Vista, users will also find several usability enhancements, including the following:

Office 2007 ribbon add-ins. The Dynamics CRM Outlook client will be updated to use the new Office 2007 ribbon, a context-sensitive toolbar which appears in Outlook 2007 when users edit e-mail messages, tasks, and other Outlook items. (Dynamics CRM uses Outlook as its primary client application; a set of add-ins gives users access to CRM functions from within Outlook.) The ribbon could help workers more quickly find relevant CRM commands and menu options when working with those items.