CDC Corp. and Microsoft ally to deliver CRM in China

It’s hard to imagine that, nearly seven centuries after Marco Polo’s famed visit to Cathay, making inroads to China is still seen as a revolutionary act. Yet in this respect, the 21st century echoes the 13th, with a second opening of the mysterious land. Of course, in our day, this quest to the unknown is all about profit. So who better than Microsoft to start laying the groundwork for relationships between East and West? Today came the announcement of another strategic move from the California behemoth: CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation, announced a strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp. to develop, market and deliver CRM enterprise applications in China.

The applications will be based on the Software as a Service design and will feature on-site and on-demand deployment. In the multi-phase long-term strategy, plans are in the works to integrate Windows Live Services and MSN with CDC Corporation’s China.com portal. The SaaS CRM offerings are planned for December 2006 release and is set to take advantage of the infrastructure established in China by internet service and video game company China.com., a division of CDC Corporation. China.com has been established nationwide in thirty provinces and reportedly serves more than 5 million first-time visitors daily.

The China.com network currently supports the company’s widely online games, portal business and hosting services for more than 1,700 Chinese businesses. Exercising his right to understate, Microsoft Dynamics CRM general manager Brad Wilson said that “China represents a strategic growth opportunity for our CRM business” and called the country “an important high-growth market.” Wilson added that the alliance was crafted to enable the company to “leverage its popular c360 CRM add-on products, its deep knowledge of Chinese markets and channels, and its nationwide infrastructure to accelerate delivery of … products and services.”

And one CDC manager said “We are bullish on the opportunity to work with Microsoft as its Microsoft CRM strategy expands in China.” Clearly, these businessman are hiding scads of elation behind such businesslike comments. CDC Corporation is a provider of enterprise resource planning and supply chain management (SCM) software applications in addition to its CRM solutions. CDC Software’s add-ons for the c360 CRM systems and its development tools for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform are now employed by over 1,000 customers worldwide in nine languages; no word yet on which forms of Chinese other than Mandarin will be deployed in the alliance solutions.