Microsoft CRM is released. (New Products).

Microsoft Business Solutions (Microsoft) recently announced the North American availability of Microsoft Business Solutions Customer Relationship Management (Microsoft CRM). The new product was designed to support and automate the CRM strategies of midmarket organizations. Microsoft believes the solution will enable businesses to rake advantage of technology and related services that were previously reserved for large enterprises with big IT budgets. Microsoft CRM can offer an up-to-the-minute view of all interactions from initial lead through lifetime customer history. It features an intuitive user interface, and is accessible both as a browser-based application and through Microsoft Outlook. Sales teams can have better integrated, mote up-to-date information, which can facilitate better work in team environments, increase efficiency and help improve the customer experience. Microsoft CRM is the first Microsoft business application built on the Microsoft .NET infrastructure, which was designed to facilitate a simpler connection of disparate systems and enhance integration with external Web services such as credit checking, analytics and marketing automation services that extend the core functionality of the solution. The flexibility built into Microsoft CRM aims to allow midmarket businesses to determine the degree to which they want to automate and share information across their organizations. Microsoft CRM Professional Edition, which enables more complex CRM functionality including work-flow rules, customization and back-office integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and Microsoft CRM Standard Edition, which provides a range of CRM functionality for a stand-alone CRM environment without extensive business automation and integration requirements, will be distributed and implemented by Microsoft Business Solutions CRM-certified reselling partners. Microsoft CRM Standard Edition will also soon be available to reselling partners in North America through a key distributor, Ingram Micro Inc. It is expected that additional distributors will be announced over the first few months of 2003. www.microsoft.com/businesssolutions