Microsoft CRM 3.0 Hosting and FUD

Posted by Mike Snyder on December 19, 2005  |  Comments (2)

Phil Wainewright of ZDnet recently launched a FUD (Fear, Uncertainity and Doubt) campaign in regards to Microsoft CRM 3.0 hosting. In this blog post, he gets his information about Microsoft CRM 3.0 hosting from RightNow CEO Greg Cianforte and Salesnet president Jonathan Tang, both of whom are direct competitors to Microsoft CRM.

Not surprisingly, Greg and Jonathan poison Phil with some negative information about hosting and Microsoft CRM 3.0...but unfortunately they're not anywhere in the neighborhood of the truth! Phil wonders:

"After adding up all these costs plus an operating margin, what is the likelihood that partners will be in a position to compete with on-demand competitors offering slicker solutions for between $59 and $99 per month?"

Well Phil the chances are pretty darn good! I spoke with two different companies that will offer Microsoft CRM 3.0 hosting and both of them quoted me prices in the $80 per month range (plus $12 or so extra to host Exchange if you want). Since Microsoft released the 3.0 version about 2 months ahead of schedule these two hosting companies aren't live with their service offerings yet, but both of them plan to go live in mid to late January.

His article is clearly biased against Microsoft, and the fact that he doesn't reference at least one pro-Microsoft source to provide an alternate point-of-view tells quite a bit about Phil's FUD agenda. At a minimum, you would think he would like to least confirm the facts that these competitors are feeding him!

In summary, hosting Microsoft CRM 3.0 will be a solid option for companies to consider, and the pricing I've heard from hosting providers will be very competitive to other CRM hosting options.