Microsoft CRM On Track For Year-End Debut

Solution providers had Release Candidate 1 in hand last Monday and said the final product appears to be on track to ship as promised by year's end.

"It could RTM [release to manufacturing as soon as this week, or next," said one West Coast-based beta tester last week.

He and others said the code looks solid and it's unclear whether there will be a second release candidate. A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed the delivery of Release Candidate 1 and said the goal is to get final code out before the holidays.

Microsoft CRM includes tight integration with the Microsoft Outlook mail client and the basic sales-force-automation capabilities many companies need, channel players said. It does not have all the bells and whistles of Siebel Systems' CRM offering but, for many companies, Microsoft CRM will be good enough, said one East Coast-based CRM specialist.

Once viewed as a killer enterprise application, CRM is at a turning point, said Ben Holtz, president and CEO of Green Beacon Solutions, a Watertown, Mass.-based CRM consultant.

Midmarket powers including Onyx Software and Pivotal "are pushing up, big guys like Siebel are trying to come down, new players like PeopleSoft and SAP are entering, and midmarket guys like SalesLogix and GoldMine are trying to keep share," Holtz said.

Allison Watson, vice president of worldwide partner sales and marketing at Microsoft, said the Standard Edition of Microsoft CRM will be offered by Microsoft's broad channel, while the Professional Edition will be handled by authorized Microsoft Business Solutions partners.

"[Microsoft CRM is not just a buy-it-quick product; it requires knowledge of the whole Microsoft stack,Windows, SQL Server, Exchange," Watson said.

Given Microsoft's marketing might, there is considerable interest in the product, solution providers said. "We already have customers signed," said Yacov Wrocherinsky, president of Infinity Systems, New York.

Microsoft's decision to enter the CRM market was controversial as CRM traditionally has been an enterprise application segment led by key Microsoft ISV partners. Indeed, Microsoft's Great Plains group previously bundled its own midmarket offerings with Siebel Midmarket Edition CRM software. Solution providers said that despite Microsoft's and Siebel's amicable parting of the ways on that bundling deal, it is inevitable that Microsoft CRM will move up into Siebel's enterprise space even as Siebel wrestles with its own midmarket plans.

Siebel did not return calls for comment.