How Microsoft Has Used XRM to Take Dynamics CRM to a New Competitive Level

Dynamics CRM has been a solid application platform since the launch of CRM 3.0 in 2005, and maybe even earlier depending on who you ask.  But with the growth of CRM Online, along with competitors like Salesforce.com's Force.com platform, and other application platform options in the market, Microsoft has used the last year to try to position its XRM vision ahead of the pack. 

So far, it has made considerable progress.

Interest in XRM appears to be growing considerably.  One measure of the interest in xRM is the conception and rapid growth of the XRM Virtual User Group.  The group, lead  by Julie Yack of Colorado Technology Consultants, a Microsoft application consultancy, has grown well past 500 members since its inception in March 2009.  New members continue to join at a steady rate every day, Yack says. 

True to its name, the XRM Virtual User Groups have built their online presence as an XRM application - a web site hosted on Azure, built with the web site building tool ADXSTUDIO, and connected, via ADXSTUDIO's XRM Extensions, to Dynamics CRM Online for managing everything from the articles and events to the user identification. 

While Yack estimates that as many as 80% of the members of the user group are developers, some are Dynamics CRM users who "know CRM forwards and backwards and have never written a line of code in their lives. "  They see the platform and its re-use as a cost savings measure in developing new applications for their business.

Dynamics CRM veterans are not the only ones being courted by the XRM value proposition.  The CRM Incubation Week event, most recently run in April in Boston, brought in teams from a broad range of ...