New Microsoft Dynamics CRM Accelerator Enables Companies to Keep Tabs on Twitter Conversations

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has announced three new accelerators, including one that tracks what people are saying about particular companies on Twitter. That highly topical accelerator is expected to be expanded to other social networking sites before long.

The three new accelerators are in addition to eight Microsoft Dynamics CRM announced last year, which included eservice, event management, analytics, and extended sales forecasting. All the accelerators are made available at no charge.

According to Microsoft, "The Social Networking Accelerator allows business professionals to monitor and analyze customers' conversations on social networking sites, and as a result, provides real-time status updates about their products and services. This accelerator delivers integration with Twitter; other networks will be introduced in future releases."

Microsoft is betting that the conversations that occur on Twitter will provide insights into what customers are thinking about sellers and their brands. A Microsoft official demonstrating the new accelerator talks about the new accelerator being used "to identify influential people." 

A second accelerator is a Portal Integration Accelerator that Microsoft says "easily connects Microsoft Dynamics CRM to an organization's Web experience." It allows companies to "use point-and-click configuration--as opposed to Web development--to rapidly extend to the Internet any business process and drive costs out of everyday business interactions."

And the third acclerator is the Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator, which "allows businesses to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to distribute sales leads and centrally manage sales opportunities across channel partners. It provides pre-built extensions to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM sales force automation functionality, including new data entities, workflow and reports. Using the PRM Accelerator, companies can jointly manage sales processes with their channel partners through a centralized Web portal, as well as extend this ...