Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional Edition for Service Providers is essentially the on-premises Professional Edition which has had hosting extensions added to support deployment in professional hosted environments.
It offers the same deployment options as the Professional Edition such as the ability for all or parts of the application to be supplied on-premise or hosted. Delivered through its partner network, it is aimed at organizations who either offer hosted Microsoft CRM directly to end customers, or ISV’s like backbone telco providers, and VARs.
Microsoft is preaching to ISP’s and VAR’s to get into on-demand, said Kevin Faulkner, product marketing director, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, underlining the about-face the company has undergone on hosting.
This follows its announcement of special hosting licensing options that came with the release of CRM 3.0 and its plans to move to a hosting friendly multi-tenant architecture when the next version, codenamed Titan, is released in 12 to 15 months time. It is also part of the wider Microsoft push to offer SaaS across its business following its belated conversion to the concept.
Microsoft charges service providers who use the edition a wholesale flat license fee of $25 per user, per month, paid on an actual usage basis, with no up front fees. It is up to the service providers to set the final charge to their users which will depend on their objectives and how much added value they add. It is up to the partner ecosystem to work out how much they charge their users, said Faulkner.
Will SaaS take over the world, he said, no, but because it is a viable delivery model it will take a seat at the table. It is important to get the channel onboard and not alienate the channel. On demand still needs value add, that is what is missing in on demand today. We’ve got that system built for on premise and are bringing it to on demand.
Its second initiative is the release of the first of a series of packaged connectors to enable a real time link between Microsoft CRM and both its own back end applications and third party applications such as Siebel, SAP and Oracle. The plan is to deliver them over the next 12 months for all of its own back office applications.
To date, connector availability has been patchy and has not covered all of the Microsoft Dynamics applications. The first available connector is an updated connector to Microsoft Dynamics GP. However, the connectors require customers to use BizTalk Server.
The connector initiative is designed to appeal to enterprise customers and Faulkner said it was created in response to demand from the customer base who wanted to connect Microsoft CRM to their enterprise applications. They could have gone for a partner solution but he said they sought a high end Microsoft-built integration offering.
It also contributes to the People-Ready Business vision which is Microsoft’s initiative to show the world that it understands the enterprise and is serious about meeting its needs across the breadth of its product base, including its business applications.
This raises the question that all partners fear, that the vendor could start to cream off their prospects. Faulkner does not believe this is a risk because the value for partners comes not from implementation but the provision of verticalization and customization. Microsoft’s enterprise connector focus will only diminish that in a small way he said, partners can build value on top of the connectors. He believes it also removes the need to get down to base level implementation issues.
While the GP connector is available now, the connectors to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics AX are scheduled for the first quarter of 2007. The standard Microsoft CRM connector to BizTalk Server and the integration with Seibel CRM systems are slated for the third quarter of 2006.
