Dynamics CRM and XAML Open the Doors for a New Paradigm of Application Development

In a recent CRMUG workshop, Reuben Krippner, Senior Product Manager on the Microsoft CRM Team, detailed a powerful way to leverage Dynamics CRM with the Microsoft Stack. Krippner described a central ingredient for the success of CRM-XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language), which helps streamline collaboration between designers and developers for a new and more effective user interface.

"We're now in a world where people can focus on the right areas that matter," said Krippner. "Previously, we had a lot of developers who were creating user experiences. Functionally, the interfaces delivered what they needed to, but the user experience was not optimal. Now, [with XAML in CRM 4.0], developers can focus on building out the logic and all of the things that happen behind the scenes, while designers create a fascinating user experience that is intuitive and easy to understand."

XAML is essentially a XML-based language created by Microsoft (similar to HTML for Windows) that allows developers to define applications, but keep the code and content separate. Available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise, XAML enables users to distinguish between the code or logic of a web page/application and the actual presentation of the page/application. When integrated with visualization technologies, such as Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight, a seamless user experience can be created in Dynamics CRM to provide better access to CRM information from the desktop.

"If we're able to provide a richer user ...