Microsoft “Heading Into Homestretch” on Dynamics CRM 5—Will Emphasize “Consumerization” and Integration

Microsoft's development team for Dynamics CRM 5 "is heading into the home stretch," and the new application will be formally introduced "within the next twelve months," according to Craig Unger, general manager of Dynamics CRM R&D.

Speaking to an audience of about 500 at Convergence 2010 in Atlanta, Unger said Dynamics CRM 5 "is the largest release we've ever done...We are putting the final touches on the third and final milestone." He said 40 customers and 400 partners are using the development version of Dynamics CRM 5.

In his brief talk at Convergence, in the form of a question-and-answer session with Dynamics CRM general manager Brad Wilson, Unger emphasized both the flexibility and integration capabilities of Dynamics CRM 5. "A couple years ago, we talked about the cloud as the power of choice. Increasingly we're talking about the cloud and software plus services...a hybrid approach."

He spoke about the importance of "consumerization" of Dynamics CRM 5-"delivering the experience as the user does." That means, for example, integrating with Outlook, having "little bits of CRM on your mobile phone," and being able to capture leads from social networks, all without having to go back and forth between two or three applications.

Unger said that CRM 5 will be designed as well "to get a 360-degree view of customers...If you want to stay competitive...you have to have a view of customers from when you first made contact." Dynamics CRM 5 will help with "integration of data that may like in your system." An initial example of the expanded effort to use CRM for mining existing data is the integration with Dynamics GP 2010, just announced and being shipped beginning May 1.

As part of the Dynamics CRM presentation, Brad Wilson highlighted the experiences of two users ...