Big deal between big provider and big firm

Microsoft Corp. told of a big deal to close out its week today: Sperry Van Ness, the commercial real estate investment brokerage firms, has chosen to build on its recently implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution with Microsoft Dynamics GP to create a Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning suite.

Sperry Van Ness, founded in 1987 and based in Irvine, Calif., sells commercial property by proactively marketing all listings to the brokerage and investment community nationwide. The firm has ballooned from seven markets into 150 since 2001, increasing its total staff to 1,400.

The firm leveraged custom-built applications based on Microsoft .NET, the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform and Microsoft CRM 3.0 to create an interactive mapping tool that assists its advisors in locating and showcasing properties. Sperry Van Ness numbers show that the solution saves the company 75,000 hours per year in creating property brochures and web sites, while integrating the customer contact database.

The Mission Viejo, Calif., office of Collins Computing Inc., proud winner of the Microsoft Business Solutions’ 2006 Sales and Marketing Partner of the Year, will implement the solution.