Microsoft's .NET to manage customer relationships

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By Peter Sayer

(IDG) -- Microsoft Corp. will deliver its first .NET service for businesses, a customer relationship management (CRM) product, in the fourth quarter, the company announced Tuesday.

Microsoft Customer Relationship Management, aimed at small and midsize companies, will be packaged as either stand-alone software or a hosted service.

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The package will provide a single, integrated view of contacts with customers, work with Microsoft's Office desktop productivity software and back-office systems from its Microsoft Great Plains subsidiary and be accessible from Microsoft Outlook or a Web browser, according to a company statement. Microsoft acquired Fargo, North Dakota-based business software company Great Plains in 2000 (see story).

The package will be available either as a stand-alone product or integrated with Great Plains Dynamics, Solomon and eEnterprise back-office products and will be sold in boxed or hosted versions, said Microsoft.

North American users should see the product in the fourth quarter this year, sold by Great Plains' usual resellers or hosted by selected partners. Elsewhere, it will be introduced in phases starting in the first quarter of 2003. The price will be announced later this year, Microsoft said.

Microsoft took pains to reassure channel partners and integrators that this wasn't the start of a march into the high-end CRM market. The company said it will continue to address the needs of midsize businesses through its alliance with Siebel Systems Inc. in San Mateo, California.

Market watchers, too, see little prospect of Microsoft muscling its way into the high end of the CRM market. SAP AG, PeopleSoft Inc. and Oracle Corp. will continue to have the advantages of market domination, product maturity and market reach, at least until 2004, according to Nick Hewson, director of strategic planning at Hewson Consulting Ltd. in England.

"By 2004, the complexity of CRM projects will not have gone away and will be demanding more front- to back-office integration. I do not believe that this is a market that Microsoft can march into and take at will," Hewson said in an e-mail.

Microsoft already offers a number of CRM products for small and midsize businesses. Its hosted, subscription-based bCentral service offers e-mail, appointment and customer service management. Other CRM software from its Great Plains division includes eEnterprise Field Service for midsize customers in technology industries; Solomon Field Service, a vertical-market system for heating contractors; and the co-branded Great Plains Siebel Front Office.