Microsoft CRM 3.0: Big fish in the mid-sized pond

Big news from the horse’s mouth: Microsoft has announced the worldwide availability of its Dynamics CRM Professional Edition for Service Providers. With CRM 3.0, third parties can be made capable of hosted solution providing wherein CRM services are subscribed to. Succinctly put, customers “will be able to offer up vanilla-flavored hosting solutions,” according to Microsoft Canada CRM product manager Frank Falcone. Dynamics CRM Professional Edition for Service Providers represents another release in the crush to garner a larger slice of the small- to mid-size business CRM pie.

In 2005, the enterprise resource planning market grew six per cent to approximately $1 billion in spending in Canada, with the highest growth in the mid-sized business market. Microsoft representatives hold that CRM hosting solutions are typically onsite as opposed to online; however, small- to mid-sized businesses rarely have the option to make their hosting in-house and thus prefer the servicing and low maintenance of web-based solutions.

They also recognize that Microsoft is lagging a bit in this area. “The challenge,” says Ontario-based VOX Wireless (a Microsoft partner) vice president of sales and marketing Peter Bolger, “is that Microsoft isn’t seen as a business solution vendor.” A multi-tenancy version of 3.0 has already been announced as well, though no date has been set for the release of the program to be named Titan.