Microsoft CRM 3.0 News and Updates

Everyone knows that Microsoft is working hard on the next release of the Microsoft CRM 3.0 software, but the big questions everyone wants answered are: When will Microsoft CRM 3.0 ship?   What new features will be included in Microsoft CRM 3.0? Please sign up for our monthly e-mail newsletter and/or subscribe to our blog data feed and we'll notify you with breaking news on Microsoft CRM 3.0...

	November 15th, 2005 update	Microsoft posted the RTM (Released to Manufacturing) version of Microsoft CRM 3.0 to the MSDN subscriber downloads website. This means that MSDN subscribers can download the Microsoft CRM 3.0 software and start using it in production environments.
	November 3rd, 2005 update	Multiple news sources (and an official Microsoft blog) report that Microsoft CRM 3.0 Released-to-Manufacturing this week. Customers will be able to get the software in early December, possibly as early as December 1st.
	October 14th, 2005 update	On a partner-only webcast today, Microsoft confirmed the same product release dates that they originally announced back in February. Released-To-Manufacturing (RTM) is slated for calendar Q4 2005. General Availability (GA) is scheduled for calendar Q1 2006. Customer support from Microsoft and their online training will be available once the product hits GA. They also announced they will start a broad partner-only beta release of the CRM 3.0 software starting tomorrow October 15th.
	September 6th, 2005 update	The Microsoft CRM 3.0 ship date has not been officially announced yet. It doesn't appear that Microsoft CRM Partners received their beta version of CRM 3.0 in August. Therefore, it seems unlikely that CRM customers will receive a beta version in September (as previously reported in July).

	July 5th, 2005 update	Various news sources confirm ship dates for Microsoft CRM 3.0 (as originally reported in March 2005). Microsoft CRM Partners will receive a beta version Microsoft CRM 3.0 in August 2005,with a customer beta due to ship in September. Microsoft CRM 3.0 will be available to existing customers in the fourth quarter of 2005 and new Microsoft CRM customers will receive Microsoft CRM 3.0 in the first quarter of 2006.
	June 6th, 2005 update	Rumors are swirling that the next public announcement about Microsoft CRM will take place at the Microsoft Partner Conference July 7th to 10th.
	May 17th, 2005 update	No new information regarding the product release dates or the official name of the next version of Microsoft CRM.
	March 5th, 2005 update	Microsoft CRM General Manager Brad Wilson and Microsoft CRM Director of Program Management Alex Simons gave a "Microsoft CRM State of the Union" presentation at the Convergence Conference in San Diego. They provided some additional details around the previously announced shipping dates. Partners should be able to access non-production CRM code in September 2005 through the Early Access Program. The previously announced GTM (Go-to-Manufacturing) date is still Q4 2005 and GA (General Availability) is Q1 2006. They said that existing CRM customers should be able to download production code once they hit their GTM target, but new customers will have to wait until GA to receive the new software.
	February 10, 2005 update	Microsoft released a CRM "Next Version" Product Roadmap Q & A document confirming the Q4 ship dates reported in the press. The Q & A says that as of February 2005 more than 100 global ISVs and partners are participating in the Technology Adoption Program Release 1 (TAP1). Customer and Partner Beta program details will be available in April 2005. Download the Microsoft CRM "Next Version" Product Roadmap Q & A document...
	February 10, 2005 update	InfoWorld reports that Microsoft CRM 2005 will ship to customers this year in fourth quarter (calender Q4). Microsoft CRM General Manager Brad Wilson said that they delayed the ship date due to partner feedback and the desire to include additional functionality. Similar stories are reported by CNET, InformationWeek and SearchCRM.
	February 9, 2005 update	Alex Simons, Microsoft CRM Director of Program Management, said on the CRM newsgroup that "We are planning to do a broader beta as we get closer to ship. You'll see details from the marketing team in the next month or so as they get all the details for how to apply worked out."
	January 31, 2005 update	eWeek publishes an article stating "Version 2 of Microsoft's customer relationship management suite—scheduled to be released to manufacturing in March".
	January 13, 2005 update	Information Week publishes an article stating that "Microsoft CRM 2005 will be released to manufacturing in March, with general availability to follow later in the year". While causing a lot of excitement on message boards about the mention of March, the key is that general availability will follow later in the year.
	November 2004 update	A select group of partners and customers received Microsoft CRM 2005 Alpha code.
	July 6th, 2004 update	The official Microsoft CRM Product Roadmap (from Microsoft.com) shows a generally available (shipping) date of April-June 2005 for Microsoft CRM 2005 (CRM 2.0). However, those dates are now seven months old, and potentially not too accurate.

	Source: Microsoft CRM 3.0 Implementation Guide October 21st, 2005	Microsoft CRM 3.0 includes simplified and improved deployment and management, new features such as service scheduling and marketing automation, and enhancements in key areas such as viewing all information about an account or contact, reporting, finding data, and merging duplicate records. Improved deployment Setup checks the technical environment to ensure that appropriate settings and privileges are in place, prior to beginning setup Easier deployment of Microsoft CRM client for Outlook Streamlined deployment for Windows Small Business Server 2003 Support for moving from test and development environments to a production environment New Microsoft Exchange integration architecture allows use of existing virus and spam filtering software, routing of user-to-user e-mail, and multiple Microsoft CRM systems within one Microsoft Exchange environment Security information is stored within Microsoft CRM, rather than in Active Directory, simplifying setup and reporting, as well as improving system performance, scalability, and serviceability Support for running Microsoft CRM in a high-availability environment, with increased diagnostic and maintenance functions, and ability to provide fault tolerance for each potential point of failure Improved management Customization tools now available through one consistent Web interface Enhanced support for VARs and ISVs Support for customizing activities Support for creating new objects Enhanced functionality and extensibility in workflow New secured database views to allow a variety of reporting tools Enhanced form customization, including support for read-only fields, additional form events, and embedded web pages New feature: Service scheduling Track availability of service resources such as staff, work schedules, and locations Sophisticated scheduling engine manages booking of appointments, service availability, and can be tuned to optimize scheduling to reduce costs and required resources Integrated with entire Microsoft CRM system so that customer history, demographics, and preferences can be considered as part of service scheduling, and service history can be used for data for sales and marketing processes New feature: Marketing automation Plan, create and manage a marketing campaign, including return on investment evaluation List management, including creation, import, and export Connection with sales and service data Campaign templates that are used to drive sales activities Easier to use reports Improved reporting, including parameterized reports Improved report customization, including the ability to modify reports in existing Microsoft CRM categories, create additional dynamic and static reports, schedule reports, and e-mail report results Easier to find information Finding records is easier, including a more powerful quick find, and an easier to use and more powerful advanced find, including grouping and time-based queries, and the ability to save and reuse favorite queries Providing a full view of a customer, such as viewing activities from within account and contact records, including new filters to show only needed information Clearer view of the relationships between accounts, contacts and opportunities Easier to use Merge duplicate accounts, contacts, and leads Enhanced user interface, including a new notes interface and improvements to the knowledge base When leads are converted to accounts, contacts or opportunities, associated activities and notes are included Easier to customize Additional customization, including adding entities Improved report customization, including ability to modify reports in existing Microsoft CRM categories, create additional dynamic and static reports, schedule reports, and e-mail report results

	Source: Microsoft CRM 3.0 SDK October 20th, 2005	Feature area Description Marketing Automation Marketing campaigns driven through sales: Marketing list management Campaign templates Campaign management Service Management Powerful management across service resources: Service scheduling engine Global appointment book for resource and workforce planning User Interface Improvements Delivering on ease-of-use promise: Faster data input with fewer clicks, in-line notes, attachments, and the save and new command Faster data access (roll-up, quick find, advanced find) Data cleanliness (merge) Richer activity model (activity management) Intuitive unified toolbar across all grids Integration with Microsoft Office Delivering the best CRM for Office: Seamless integration, full functionality in Outlook IBF to surface CRM data and actions in Office Reporting through Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Access Integration with Microsoft Outlook Deeper and richer Outlook integration: The premier Microsoft CRM client for sales, service, and marketing New online only multi-user Outlook client Support for custom entities Control over which data can go offline and which data is synchronized Faster page load Faster synchronization Reporting Now includes the full power of Microsoft SQL Server: SQL Reporting Services Report Engine Filtered database views for other reporting tools Strong Microsoft Office integration and analysis "No Fail" setup Simple and reliable application installation: Environmental Diagnostics Wizard for validation Repair and rollback support Group policy support for desktops using Microsoft CRM Sales for Outlook Ability to create new report servers or connect to existing ones Small Business deployments Minimal involvement by application installer "Name and Key" installation - the rest is automated Optimized for Windows Small Business Server 2003 IT improvements Enhanced support for existing corporate networks and policies: Leverage Active Directory for authentication only New Exchange architecture for e-mail tracking and routing Enhanced application security Fault tolerance support for Microsoft CRM, e-mail, and database servers Customization tools Support for tailoring closely to business needs without writing code: Customize activities Customize, rename, add, and delete new entities Add and delete new attributes Increased capacity for new attributes Customize cascading behavior for operations Customize relationships and mappings Workflow for business process automation Application extensibility Custom integrations and vertical solutions through code: Extend the application UI – Navigation, toolbar, grid actions in a single configuration file for both Web and Outlook clients Outlook menu extensions Transactional callouts on mid-tier for business logic Write client side code for enhanced usability Call Web services from workflow for cross-system support New SDK New SDK supports a strong partner community: New Web service architecture based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) and WSDL standards APIs to support ISVs such as import, export, and publish APIs

	Source: Microsoft.com Downloads August 18th, 2005	Microsoft releases a publically accessible white paper titled "Upgrading Unsupported Microsoft CRM 1.2 Environments to Microsoft CRM 3.0". In this white paper are multiple screenshots of Microsoft CRM 3.0 that we extracted and posted on our website.

	Source: eWeek July 5th, 2005	Microsoft will introduce a Small Business Edition of Microsoft CRM with this release designed for companies with up to 75 employees Microsoft CRM 3.0 will include an optional subscription-based pricing model wherein customers would pay a per-month application rental fee rather than a perpetual license. Microsoft partners would host the application. Marketing automation applications including list management, campaign management, marketing response management and marketing resource management There are also roles-based interfaces in the 3.0 release New high-performance synchronization engine to improve the user experience from disconnected laptops and handheld devices Support for tracking of e-mail threads associated with customer accounts Workflow engine for triggering external applications Improved reporting, particularly for exporting data to Excel spreadsheets This release will include a complex service scheduling module, designed to automatically find the best times to schedule service calls for field service or timeslots for professional services employees
	Source: Tech-Ed May 2005	The Tech-Ed session agendas include detailed looks at the next version of Microsoft CRM, including a "Deep Dive" and a detailed session on the new SDK. Read more in our blog post.
	Source: CRN January 2005	Adding Marketing and Field Service capabilities Adding appointment tracking to the sales and service functions Better architected for use as a hosted solution Possible 'hard bundle' with Small Business Server 2003
	Source: Information Week January 2005	Microsoft CRM 2005 will make greater use of a services-oriented architecture, or SOA, for linking resources, such as data or code, on demand over a network Give customers the ability to define objects not typically associated with a CRM system--such as data from a bank account that may be important to customer-service reps at a mortgage company--and make them part of the application's core Web-services layer
	Source: Alex Simons Microsoft CRM Director of Program Management Various dates on CRM newsgroup	Support multiple users of CRM Outlook Add-in on a single machine (online use only) CRM Outlook Add-in will leave a copy of sent emails in the Sent Items folder Allow users to link CRM appointments, tasks and emails to Support Cases using the CRM Outlook Add-in Adding very robust ability to create custom objects with new customizable screens and one-to-many and many-to-one relationships to existing CRM objects Option to prevent users from exporting data to Excel (for security purposes)
	Source: Microsoft Press Release September 2004	Microsoft will ship SQL Server Reporting Services in Microsoft CRM 2005 (CRM 2.0) release
	Source: Microsoft Product Roadmap July 2004	Bulk edit Record merge (de-duplication) Simplified set-up Activity customization Account roll-up Data cleansing Many-to-many relationships for contacts and accounts Products by customer Outlook synchronization enhancements Workflow enhancements Performance and scalability enhancements Service scheduling Add entity Marketing Campaign Management Marketing List Management