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Yesterday Microsoft unveiled what can only be called a Twitter tracker as part of a collection of "solution accelerators" for their midrange Dynamics CRM offering that will be downloadable in the next few weeks. Two of the new applications covered conventional customer relationship tasks – website integration and channel partner lead management, but the third, the Social Networking Accelerator is rather different:
The Social Networking Accelerator allows business professionals to monitor and analyze customers’ conversations on social networking sites, and as a result, provides real-time status updates about their products and services. This accelerator delivers integration with Twitter; other networks will be introduced in future releases. The Social Networking Accelerator can be viewed online at http://crm.dynamics.com.
If you follow the link, you’ll find that the demo is not currently working, but a Microsoft presentation summarizes the functionality as:
What it does:
The SeattlePI also has an instructive video.
Microsoft is not the first to try mining the Twitter vein for contact relationship management – their nemesis Salesforce.com and a start-up named CoTweet are digging into it as well and there is also speculation that Twitter would like to do it themselves. Whether there is actually some gold there is another question but the topic of Twitter reputation management is currently getting a lot of buzz.
Microsoft’s Convergence 2009 conference for users of their Dynamics line of software started today and the headliner is the announcement some new freebies for Dynamics CRM Online:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online March 2009 Service Update. At no additional charge, Microsoft is delivering an industry-leading, financially backed service level agreement of 99.9 percent uptime to all Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customers; new Internet lead capture capabilities that help increase sales pipeline while reducing costs; cloud integration services that provide multiple options for security-enhanced Web-based authentication with third-party applications; and new quick-start tools that familiarize new customers with the application so they can realize value quickly. Additional information can be found at http://crm.dynamics.com.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Accelerators. Also at no additional charge, Microsoft is offering eight software extensions that are available for download today. The CRM Accelerators are add-on solutions that can be deployed quickly and easily to extend marketing, sales and service capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Accelerators are Analytics, Business Productivity, CRM Notifications, Enterprise Search, eService, Event Management, Extended Sales Forecasting and Sales Methodologies, and can be downloaded at http://www.codeplex.com/crmaccelerators.
Also noteworthy was the discount offer to show attendees of "savings of as much as 75 percent on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and up to 20 percent on Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics SL." Even if you did not attend the show, I’m sure that your friendly Microsoft salesman would be able to offer a similar deal.
More related announcements including a quixotic new hosted Dynamics CRM offering from EDS by following the link.
Microsoft yesterday announced the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 with a large laundry list of enhancements.
Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta) is one of Microsoft’s poorly delineated family of mid-market enterprise resource planning products that were obtained by acquisition and then left to snooze profitlessly in Microsoft Business Solutions. Microsoft had high hopes for mashing together all the odds and ends in MBS under the Dynamics brand and sharing a combined underlying framework called "Project Green," but the bloom was soon off the latter rose and only the brand remains. Still, Dynamics AX might be viewed as a triumph of sorts:
AX 9000 also represents the start of Microsoft’s new strategy of CRM software "harmonization," adopted after the failure of Microsoft’s Project Green, an initiative to move components from its various CRM products to a single Web services-based environment.
Instead, Microsoft now plans to "harmonize" its CRM offerings through increased adoption of SQL Server and the .NET Framework across AX and its other CRM product line-ups: Dynamics GP, NAV, and SL.
So the developers continue to beaver on supporting their existing customers and perhaps bagging a new one here and there, but the financial results, if they are in fact positive, are buried by Office with which Dynamics shares the Microsoft’s Business Division.
Hitting another end of year milestone Microsoft today announced the RTM of two flavors of Microsoft Dynamics CRM:
The new version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, formerly code-named “Titan,” has been completed and released to manufacturing, Microsoft Corp. announced today. The new version is offered under two product names: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for on-premise and partner-hosted deployments and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live for Microsoft-hosted deployment. Designed with a single unified-code base for both on-premise and on-demand deployments, Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables customers to choose the right deployment model for their specific business and IT needs, with the flexibility to change deployment models over time if their needs or preferences change.
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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 will be available worldwide in more than 25 languages. The English language pack will be available within the next seven days to new and existing partners and customers. Nine additional language packs will be available in January and the remaining language packs will be delivered at a rate of four or more each month.
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The new Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM service is offered only in the United States and Canada, and is currently available to a limited number of customers via the Early Access program.
Despite the RTM, the hosted CRM Live offering seems to be in the same twilight state it was in July, but that will be cold comfort for the Microsoft partners who bought into hosting Dynamics CRM 3.0 for customers, only to have Microsoft blow them out of the water with their own hosting service.
