A leading commercial Customer Relationship Management software is Microsoft CRM. The Microsoft CRM software package is developed by Microsoft and marketed as part of their Microsoft Dynamics portfolio of business tools.
Microsoft CRM is a feature rich tool which has evolved since its first release to become a major selling product for Microsoft and a very competitive software package in the CRM marketplace.
Licensing of the Microsoft CRM software package is pretty straight-forward and simple. There are two licensing types, a Server license and Client Access License (CAL). Each deployment should have at least one server license and one CAL.
Microsoft CRM software history includes:
- Version 1.2
- Version 3.0
- Version 4.0
- Version 5.0 (planned 2009/2010)
Microsoft CRM version 4.0 adds a vast array of new features, the most important of them being that version 4.0 is true multi-tenancy, which allows the creation of multiple organizations on a single server. Microsoft CRM 4.0 was released with the following improvements:
- More powerful and easier to configure Reporting and Business Intelligence
- More powerful data import tools, de-duplication capability now included
- Enhanced entity relationships – many to many, self-referential
- Light enquiry user licence now available – potentially reducing the costs associated with rolling out across larger organizations
- Multi Tenancy – One server can host more than one business organization
- Multi Currency and multi Lingual
- Microsoft Office Communicator integration
- Cloud Computing capability with Microsoft Online Services
