Michael Rich

My new role!

Many of you already know that I have started a new role as a Senior Product Manager in Redmond.

I'm looking forward to continuing to work with the field in this new role, listening to your ideas and providing you with solutions to sell more CRM and make your businesses more successful.

As such, I won't be posting to the West Coast blog anymore, but I hope my successor will take it up.

In the meantime, check out all the other great CRM listed here.

Thanks!

Michael

May Solutions Webcast

The May Solutions Webcast featured Eloqua and Streamline Solutions. You can view it here:

https://www119.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/view?cn=&id=DFDT2Z&pw=

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Virtual Machine - May Release

The latest Microsoft CRM 3.0 VPC image demo system is now available for partner download here from the Microsoft Download Center!

This May 2006 release is a major update of the popular Microsoft CRM 3.0 VPC image released on December 19^th, 2005. Designed to help partners and field team members facilitate cost-effective, customizable, and quick-to-launch demonstrations, the image includes several upgrades and improvements based on your feedback from the initial release –

• Enriched VPC data quality –
  • Two completed marketing campaigns
  • Thousands of transactions
  • Tens of thousands of activities
• Included strong examples of Microsoft CRM integration with Microsoft Word, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting, and more

• Optimized run speed and file size of the VPC image to enhance the presentation quality and experience

This image will be supported with additional demo scripts to be released early June 2006.  The scripts will be posted directly to the Microsoft CRM VPC download site within the Microsoft Download Center. 

Hard copies of the VPC image will also be available for ordering externally at https://mbs3.microsoft.com/onlineorder/ (part number: LMDV-L000-D00A300) within the June 2006 timeframe. 

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows XP

• Other Requirements: Personal Computer with 1.5 GHz or higher processor and at least 1.5 GB RAM.
• 15 GB free hard drive space
• Super VGA (1024x768) video adapter/monitor
• Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 SP1 software (package contains trial version)

Microsoft CRM VPC Feedback Site - http://www.microsoftcrmdemo.com/feedback

Additional Partner Quotes -

"We love it, we love it, we love it! The new Microsoft CRM VPC image shows off many of the product's rich customization and deep integration features, but it's still fast and easy enough for our sales team to demo off of a single laptop."

Mike Snyder | Sonoma Partners

“This image is going to have a huge impact on our ability to sell….I was able to pull together a fully functional demonstration of very key aspects of [a key prospect’s] sales process and was still able to show a broad overview of the power of the platform including SharePoint, Search, Scorecards, and much, much more.” 

Jim Stout | CEO, Invoke Systems

"The recently released CRM image is awesome. It is great to see Microsoft listening to partners and responding with tools that will help us close more deals. Microsoft's integrated vision for CRM can really be proven with this new demo environment. Hats off to everyone who helped build this for us”

Scott Millwood | President, Customer Effective

New Microsoft Dynamics CRM VPC Demo
June 08, 2006 12:00 PM Pacific
Attend this web seminar to learn how to effectively demo the recently released Microsoft CRM VPC. By attending this web seminar, you will get a walkthrough of some of the new features to demo and how to show them to prospective customers. Also, you will learn about the customizations made, business intelligence tools and Word integration. To register:
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April Solutions Webcast

View the April Solutions Webcast featuring

• Axonom
• Nolan Computers

https://www119.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/view?id=SW927N

Offering Microsoft CRM Hosted to your customers

One of the biggest advantages Microsoft CRM has is the ability to be able to be on-premise or hosted.  (See Charlie Wood’s great article he has on the SaaS vs on premise with Microsoft CRM.)  The on-premise product has been available for some time, so we aren’t going to focus on them right now. For the hosted, most of the partners I talk to still aren’t sure how to approach the opportunity. What I mean by that, is hosted another competitor that they have to worry about? The quick answer is no. Nor does it mean that you have to go out, become a data center and host Microsoft CRM yourself. (Which you can do.)

One of our hosting partners has seen the value in hosting Microsoft CRM, but does not nor will become a Microsoft CRM consulting company. This gives you the ability to be able to do some consulting around Microsoft CRM and not care if the software is installed locally or available as Software as a Service. (SaaS) They also pay a decent referral commission that gives you a monthly recurring revenue that overtime will overtake the CSA fees we pay to you for on premise software.

If you are interested, contact Lance at www.StreamSol.com They are also interested in hearing from our ISV partners that would like to offer their product in a Software as a Service model.

Lance actually also publishes a nice demo site where you can play with Microsoft CRM and OPENLY publishes his price list for CRM. Contact him today to see how you can partner to offer Microsoft CRM hosted to your clients and prospects.

Announcing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for Microsoft Dynamics GP

Companies use Dynamics GP to track inventory, receipt of payments and Financial beside other business functionalities and Dynamics CRM v3.0 to enable sales, marketing and customer service teams to build lasting customer relationships with an affordable, easy-to-use CRM solution from Microsoft.

The Connector is available on PartnerSource here:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/products/mscrm/downloads/releases/microsoft_crm_connector.htm?printpage=false

March ISV Solutions Webcast

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/view?id=CSJ93P

People Ready?

Check out some of the great productivity features coming out with pending releases of Office and Exchange. 

http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/webcasts.mspx

Microsoft Dynamics Snap Blog

Check out the new Microsoft Dynamics Snap Blog at

 http://blogs.msdn.com/dynamicssnap/

Updates

I have been travelling and presenting quite a bit, and I have not been able to post as often as I would like.

So, I'm going to steal some great posts from my colleagues:

Check out Ben's post about the Group1 Data Quality Adapter:
http://blogs.msdn.com/midatlanticcrm/archive/2006/03/14/ISV_Support_for_Microsoft_CRM_3_Group1_Data_Quality_Adapter.aspx
Great stuff!

Simon gives us a tutorial in MS Licensing
http://blogs.msdn.com/ukcrm/archive/2006/03/11/549441.aspx
Thanks Simon!

For your inner Geek, Michaeljon Miller talks about using the CRM SDK in an offline state.
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikemill/archive/2006/03/02/542387.aspx

Finally, try out the new version Internet Explorer - it rocks, and it has great RSS capabilities built right into it...
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx

Microsoft CRM Monthly Solutions Webcast - Western Region February Recording

    Subject:              Microsoft CRM Monthly Solutions Webcast - Western Region
    Recording URL:        https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/view
    Recording ID:         9DF65J
 

Convergence 2006 Customer Focus Groups

At Convergence, we will be launching a set of customer focus groups with regards to CRM futures. If you are bringing prospects to Convergence (or know of other companies in the Dallas area that do not use CRM today), we would like to meet with them for a 1-hour session.

Ideally we are looking for 8 companies in total, and while we are looking to use this event for CRM perceptions and behaviors, we could position this as a meeting where prospects have the opportunity to speak directly with key Microsoft CRM product personnel.

The focus group for this audience is set for Saturday, March 25 and will last 1 hour. If you know of any prospects that fit the aforementioned criteria, and would be interested to sit-down and talk shop with the CRM team, please send their contact information directly to me and I will forward to the correct Microsoft people.

Thanks, and hope to see you there!

Microsoft CRM on Blackberry

Check out Ben Vollmer's excellent article about Blackberry support...

http://blogs.msdn.com/midatlanticcrm/archive/2006/03/02/Blackberry_Solution_for_Microsoft_CRM_3.aspx

Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3 without Microsoft Exchange Server

This download gives an overview of how Microsoft CRM e-mail integration works using Microsoft Exchange Server, and then addresses the options available to customers who are not using Exchange.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2417e918-2e30-41db-a3b2-2f800bf76ffe&displaylang=en

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Data Migration Pack

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Data Migration Pack has SHIPPED!!

We have released our Data Migration Pack for v3.0, comprising of:

• Data Migration Framework 3.0
  An updated version of the tool we provided for 1.2, now enhanced with a explanatory interface that guides users through the data migration process. This is the main tool that our partners will be using when migrating data into CRM from different systems.
• Data Migration Wizard for Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager
  An end-to-end wizard targeted at our Small Business Edition folks, we now provide an easy-to-use migration option for users coming from Business Contact Manager and moving to Microsoft CRM.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3D36AC8E-B485-4F0C-9DEC-C9BACBAD1A73&displaylang=en