By Sharla Sikes Microsoft has been a household name for a while now. It makes sense, of course, that it would position itself as a major player in the Customer Relationship Management field as it has in home and business computing, and elsewhere (too many markets to list!). So, Microsoft’s entry into the CRM world [...]

Having just written about why Richard thinks on-premise CRM is better than on demand CRM, it’s time to talk about the opposite from Eric’s point of view. Eric favors on-demand CRM and goes on to explain the key benefits. A common belief is that on the man systems are unable to integrate with companies existing [...]

On Demand CRM has become a household phrase and is the choice of many companies who are looking for a low-cost and rapid deployment CRM solution. There are many benefits to outsourcing your CRM system to companies like salesforce.com or Netsuite which Alexandra Scoulas, Senior Manager from BearingPoint talks about over at CRM Today. From [...]

Lucent Technologies, the telecommunications equipment giant, outsources upward of 85 percent of its manufacturing to its contract manufacturers’ 20-plus locations worldwide, along with its own integration centers. Needless to say, it’s not easy to coordinate across different time zones and different vendors. So Lucent has contracted with Kinaxis, a software provider offering specialized coordination services [...]

There is no denying the increasing business trend to harness the power of the Internet to not only get their message out, but to manage their customer responses. For millions of companies the Internet provides a medium to service their customer interests, and facilitate greater communication. However, managing, tracking and reporting on this information was, [...]

Hosted or on-demand solutions now offer a serious alternative to the complexities and risks associated with traditional CRM solutions. Consequently, more and more companies are discovering that hosted CRM solutions simplify the management of complex business processes resulting in low risk, low cost, rapid ROI and high value. Here are four main reasons why more [...]

In the wake of announcements last week that Microsoft is delaying the consumer version of the next-generation Vista operating system, the company issued a statement on Sunday to highlight a few of its software initiatives on the business front. Most notably, Microsoft announced it has created a hosted version of its customer-relationship management (CRM) application [...]

In a now legendary 1995 memo, bill Gates raised the alarm that Microsoft was woefully unprepared for what he termed the “Internet Tidal Wave.” Fast forward 10 years to last October, and Gates blasts out another high-priority e-mail, this time warning of a coming “services wave” of applications available instantly over the Internet. “The next [...]

CRM may be the largest Software as a Service (SaaS) market, but it is by no means the only one. If current trends continue, it may well lag behind the new software sectors moving to adopt the SaaS model. One hot sector is compliance management, which is now the second largest SaaS market segment, according [...]

"We are not surprised to see Microsoft looking to target enterprise customers given the scalability of the platform as compared to earlier releases of the product," Benjamin Holtz, CEO of Green Beacon Solutions, told CRM Buyer. The customization capabilities in Version 3.0 allow partners and systems integrators to build vertical or industry specific functionality, he [...]