Microsoft Dynamics CRM In The World: Prototype Shows Off Internet of Things (IoT) Possibilities

For all the talk of Internet of Things (IoT) and how enterprise solutions like Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM can take advantage of data from devices and sensors, the portfolio of public examples remains relatively small.

Microsoft has offered its vision and some interesting examples in the last year. Microsoft Technical Architect Alex Anikiiev has been one evangelist of the company's IoT vision, having presented two IoT scenarios to the MSDW audience in the last year focused on the devices and services in a manufacturing environment. For another look at Microsoft's vision for intelligent operations in manufacturing with the new Dynamics AX, check out the recent presentation by Microsoft's Colin Masson and Mai-Britt Winther.

And in a new five part blog series, Lucas Alexander, a Dynamics CRM solution architect at Tribridge, has explored an IoT scenario that takes advantage of open source hardware and software plus cheap off the shelf peripherals to enable CRM to get closer to the real world.

Alexander took on the challenge of reading license plates optically and tying the car owners back to CRM records. Knowing in near real time which of your customers has arrived at your auto service center, parking garage, or any range of other locations could provide real efficiency and customer service opportunities. And the example is aided by some cool, readily available technology - a Raspberry Pi 2, a license plate reading software project, and Node.js. And in this case, ...