Nucleus Research gives more bad news to Salesforce.com

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 27, 2005  |  Comments (2)

Fresh off the heels of Gartner's harsh analysis of Salesforce.com, Nucleus Research unleashed an equally indicting analysis of SalesForce.com. Among their findings:

• Nucleus found no customers that had deployed to more than 2000 users; 93 percent of Salesforce.com customers had fewer than 500 users.

• 28% of customers had deployed another CRM solution to supplement the functionality in Salesforce.com

• The cost barriers to switching from Salesforce.com to another solution were relatively low.

• 38 percent of Salesforce.com customers are open to switching because "it is a commodity product, not a strategic one that impacts the way they do business".

Yikes. This must be a tough week for companies who invested a lot of time and resources into Salesforce. However, as the Gartner and Nucleus reports point out...the switching costs are low so now is the time to get on the Microsoft CRM bandwagon!

The future of mapping in Microsoft CRM?

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 26, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (0)

Microsoft announced a new service called "MSN Virtual Earth" scheduled for release by the end of the summer. The MSN service will offer similar functionality as Google Maps, but with a few very significant improvements:

• 45-degree-angle views of buildings!
• The satellite zoom will go two levels closer than Terra Server

Even though no specific plans have been announced, Microsoft hinted at future MSN Virtual Earth integration with Microsoft CRM. Based on this announcement, we whipped up a mockup to get everyone excited about the possibilities:

This 45 degree view blew us anyway! As you could imagine, sales people could use this satellite view as an additional tool to screen or qualify Opportunities.

One major caveat: the satellite images from MSN and Google are only updated once every two years or so. Using Google Maps, we noticed that several major landmarks in our hometown of Chicago were still under construction (Soldier Field, Millenium Park, etc) in the satellite image even though both places have been open for years. So if you need up-to-minute information...the satellite images might not help you too much. However, if you can live with up-to-the-last-two-year information, you will be all set!

Gartner Cites "Limitations" Of Salesforce.com

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 23, 2005  |  Comments (1)

The Gartner research firm released a stinging criticism of SalesForce.com's fit for larger corporations. Among the highlights:

• "More than 60 percent of large sales organizations deploying SalesForce.com would find their costs double within three years, due to customization and integration costs to replicate prepackaged software designed for complex organizations."

• "Beyond three years, the total cost of ownership would be greater than that of a prepackaged product, because of the additional IT resources needed."

• "Gartner estimates that more than 80 percent of Salesforce.com deployments have fewer than 20 users. However, as the company attempts to move up-market, more complex organizations should be aware of Salesforce.com's 'limitations.'"

Our first-hand experience shows that the larger the organization, the more customization and integration the CRM deployment requires. By using Microsoft CRM, customers can enjoy all the features and benefits of the .NET development platform... the world's most widely used development tools. With a hosted model like SalesForce.com, customers have to develop on SalesForce's proprietary tools and, of course, continue to pay the monthly fee forever.

Bill Gates Gives "Sneak Peek" of the Next Microsoft CRM Release

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 20, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (0)

We recently found this link with Bill Gates' keynote speech from the Microsoft Convergence Conference in March. You can read the entire transcript, download the PowerPoint file, and watch a streaming video of the keynote.

In the keynote, Bill and Kari Hensein (CRM Development team) give a "sneak peek" of the next release of Microsoft CRM. They have a short workflow demo to illustrate how a company could integrate CRM with Microsoft SharePoint.

The streaming video quality is pretty decent, but the screenshots are a little difficult to see clearly. If you don't want to watch the entire keynote speech, you can skip to the 52 minute mark to see the CRM-specific information. Since the CRM section is only a few minutes in length we think it merits a quick look!

1,000 user install of Microsoft CRM? Believe it!

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 17, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (0)

Australian IT reported that a Microsoft CRM customer just went live with 1,000 users. One of our Microsoft CRM customers runs a 500+ user implementation. Even though these types of large CRM implementations absolutely require a highly experienced CRM partner, we think these large installs are a great endorsement on the scalability of the product.

If you want to see some proof in the form of hard numbers, Microsoft published a Performance Scaling Analysis white paper last year that documents their scalability test results using Microsoft Application Center (ACT). Because our customer's CRM implementation was a highly customized implementation of Microsoft CRM, we developed our own ACT test scripts to measure their system performance under large user loads (including the customized CRM functionality) before they went live.

Long story short, if your organization is considering Microsoft CRM don't be scared away by the competition telling you the Microsoft software doesn't scale. There are plenty of large implementation success stories out there!

Microsoft confirms Internet Explorer 7 will have tabs

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 16, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (0)

The Microsoft Internet Explorer Blog confirmed that Internet Explorer 7 will indeed have tabs. This confirms our previous speculation from our May 12th post.

With Microsoft releasing new versions of Microsoft CRM and IE7 close together (late 2004/early 2005), it will be interesting to see how new IE features like tabbed browsing will (might?) be utilized in the CRM user interface.

Microsoft Previews Beta Version of CRM "Needs Assessment Wizard"

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 15, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (2)

Microsoft recently released a beta version of a Microsoft CRM Assessement Wizard / Tool. This interview-style tool is designed to help guide you through the planning of Microsoft CRM system deployment. There are lots of questions about your business processes and how they relate to your CRM install. Here is a sample screenshot:

We downloaded and evaluated the Needs Assessment Wizard. Most of the interview is really nice and well-thought out. However, some areas didn't seem too practical for larger organizations. For example, users have to manually type in all of their products one at a time (instead of an upload feature). To make matters more challenging, you can not save your work once you start the Needs Assessment interview. Considering the interview takes an hour to complete...be extra careful you don't close the window!

After you work through all of the interview questions, you can output two files:

1. A planning guide (view sample)
2. A customization configuration file (view sample)

As you can see from the samples, the planning guide could be a document that you hand to a customer at the start of a project...but it wouldn't be too helpful in managing the nuts and bolts (details) of an actual CRM implementation.

We're not 100% sure what to make of the customization configuration file yet, because we could not find the Microsoft CRM Assessment Utility that actually imports the file into CRM! We assume this utility has not been released yet because the Needs Assessment Wizard is still in Beta. However, we like the concept of setting up a bunch of system customizations using a friendly interview-style application instead of the Microsoft CRM Deployment Manager...which is a little too technical and cryptic for the average business user.

Overall, it looks like a great start but we will reserve judgement until Microsoft releases the final version of the tool.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update 5/23/05
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have seen this "Strong name validation failed for assembly" error on a few of our machines, but not all of them. All of the test machines were Windows XP SP2. We submitted a support request to Microsoft and we'll let you know what they say...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update 5/24/05
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We submitted a trouble ticket to Microsoft about this error, and they posted a new version of the Needs Assessment Wizard late yesterday. We downloaded, installed and ran it with no problems (even on machines where the first version didn't work correctly)!

Firefox, IE7 and Microsoft CRM

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 12, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (3)

The Associated Press reported that the Firefox browser took more market share from Internet Explorer:

Microsoft Corp.'s share of the U.S. browser market has slipped below 90 percent as the Firefox browser continues to grow in popularity, according to independent tracking by WebSideStory.

On computers running Microsoft's Windows, Internet Explorer has a 91 percent share, down from 97 percent in June. Outside the United States, Germany is among the leading adopters of Firefox, with a 23 percent share, compared with 69 percent for Internet Explorer.

We bring this to your attention just to remind you Microsoft CRM only runs in Internet Explorer. In fact, if you try to access Microsoft CRM using Firefox you will receive this message:

Firefox does have some nice features like tabbed browsing and PNG support, but hang in there! Microsoft will be launching a new version of Internet Explorer (version 7) this summer. The official Microsoft Internet Explorer web blog states that IE7 will address the PNG support, and we're guessing tabbed browsing too!

Microsoft Volume Licensing Improvements Coming Soon

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 11, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (0)

The website Microsoft-Watch.com reported today that Microsoft will make changes to drastically simplify their volume licensing programs. Whether you are a buyer or a reseller of Microsoft CRM, you might have experienced the confusion involved with trying to determine which of the 75+ Microsoft CRM SKU's you need...and that doesn't even count the additional 50+ SKU's for Government and Education purchases! With this in mind, any licensing simplification will be greatly appreciated by customers and partners. Here is a list of the current corporate Microsoft CRM SKU's:

Among the projected volume licensing changes reported from Microsoft-Watch.com:

• Reducing the Product Use Rights (PUR) document from 100 pages to 44 pages.

• Cutting the number of different product licensing models from 70 to 9. The nine new categories will be catch-alls covering the 70 different Microsoft products that are available under volume licenses.

• Changes will start July 1 (corresponding with Microsoft's 2006 Fiscal Year).

Microsoft did not release exact details about the volume license changes, and how these changes would impact Microsoft CRM. In the meantime, please make sure you work with certified Microsoft CRM partners who understand the licensing nuances.

Microsoft CRM Heads for the Enterprise and Tech-Ed info

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 9, 2005 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (1)

Erika Morphy of CRMDaily recently wrote an article about Microsoft CRM, discussing a few topics new and dear to our heart:

• Vertical Emphasis - Erika quoted both Microsoft CRM General Manager Brad Wilson and Yankee Group Analyst Sheryl Kingstone with comments about how the next version of Microsoft CRM will make it easier for partners to build industry specific (vertical) solutions. Of course, Sonoma Partners strongly believes in partners embracing a vertical strategy as evidenced by our focus in the Real Estate industry and our ISV product CRM Elements for Real Estate.

• Broadening Distribution - There was some discussion about Microsoft's decision to allow any partner and software distributor to sell Microsoft CRM. Sheryl Kingstone argued "It also suggested a lack of understanding on the part of Microsoft that CRM is relatively easy software to deploy and then use". With all due respect, we disagree with Sheryl's analysis. In our experience, several customers have called us after a less-than-ideal experience with a partner...but almost none of these customers tried to implement Microsoft CRM by themselves! On the contrary, the availability of Microsoft CRM in the Action Pack and MSDN Subscription allows prospects to install and evaluate CRM in a "sandbox" environment. When the prospects were done with their quick and dirty evaluations, they called a Microsoft CRM partner to actually implement the project. So even though the Microsoft CRM software is easier to purchase in the broadened distribution channels, both customers and partners have a healthly respect for the challenges involved with implementing ANY new system that touches Sales, Customer Service, Reporting and Management.

• Microsoft CRM Next Version - Brad Wilson was quoted saying "There will be 100 new features included" in the next release. Obviously, that's a pretty nebulous statement but we are hoping for some public announcements in the coming weeks.

With the Microsoft Tech-Ed conference coming up June 5 to 10th, we thought that might be an ideal time for Microsoft to release more public information about the Microsoft CRM Next Version. So we researched the conference website and took a peek at some of the breakout Tech-Ed session agendas:

BAP08  Experience the Next Release of Microsoft Business Solutions CRM

Session Type(s): Hands-on Lab

Track(s): Business Applications

A companion to the concurrent technical session entitled "Deep Dive Microsoft CRM 2.0," this lab gives implementers and developers an exclusive sneak peek at the forthcoming release of Microsoft CRM 2.0. Learn about the changes in system architecture, system security, application platform and system extensibility.

BAP237  Customize, Extend, Integrate and Innovate Using the Next Version of Microsoft Business Solutions CRM Solution Developer Kit

Speaker(s): Naveen Garg

Session Type(s): Breakout Sessions

Track(s): Business Applications

Day/Time: Friday, June 10 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM Room: S 320 E

This session centers on new customization capabilities and extensibility mechanisms available with the next version of Microsoft CRM Solution Developer Kit (SDK). Topics covered include the new Microsoft CRM SDK programming model, new add entity feature, new client side SDK, programmatic import, export and publication of customizations, and new features available with pre- and post-callouts. The session also spotlights the .NET assembly integration in workflow.