Incremental Improvement and Integration for ERP Support, CRM, and Retail

Similar to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) product lines, releases in Microsoft Business Solutions’ (MBS’s) supplemental products typically contain targeted feature improvements, as opposed to sweeping functional and architectural changes. Furthermore, all but one of MBS’s supplemental business management products have an update planned before the end of 2006. In general, such updates serve to refine existing features in mature products, such as FRx, and address deficiencies in more recent offerings, such as Microsoft Customer Relationship Management (Microsoft CRM). In some cases, new features improve integration with mainstream Microsoft products, such as Office. In most cases, MBS customers purchase support or maintenance plans that cover the cost of these incremental releases.

Unlike the ERP lines, however, a consistent cross-product release strategy has yet to emerge for MBS’s supplemental products. For example, all ERP releases over the next several years will incorporate a set of common design themes-each will use Windows SharePoint Services as its underlying portal technology, adopt a consistent user interface and navigation model, and improve integration with SQL Server features such as Analysis Services. Although no such grand plan appears to drive the upcoming releases of MBS’s supplemental products, some common themes are evident. For example, most products integrate with Office at some level. In addition, all work in some way with one or more of the MBS ERP product lines.