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1 Reason Why Microsoft CRM 4.0 Is CRM 1.0

The latest “Ah-ha!” moment was that Oracle “gets it”. Now, does Microsoft?

According to Paul Greenberg, Dennis Pombriant, and Brent Leary, it does not. All of them concluded, on record (episode 9 of PG‘s Experience on the Edge podcast), that Microsoft should have spoken about the social aspects of CRM, the blending of social and operational aspects of CRM, at their Convergence event, and that it did not.

It was the last guest on the show, Marshall Lager, who pointed to the elephant in the room. Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do; I haven’t seen the version 4 but up until the 3, comparing MS CRM to (pick Oracle, Salesforce, and even SugarCRM) was like comparing Windows Vista to Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. It seemed unfair.

Microsoft hasn’t got up to speed on the operational side of things; no wonder it’s got no time decorating their product with cool Web 2.0 gizmos.

But they will. They “get it”, and Mr Lager said as much when he mentioned his private talk with Steve Ballmer who supposedly “gets it”, and if the chairman of Microsoft gets it, the company does, too, no doubt about it. It will just take some time for us to see it.

The question is, of course, what the “Web 2.0″ will look like when Microsoft finally catches up. Whether, for example, integrating “social networks” (as in facebook, etc.) into CRM applications will still have any value at all, given that users come and go as they please, and off they go once a new “disruptor” commands their attention. (some say Twitter is stealing Facebook hotshots – is that true? who cares?)

I see no reason why I should end differently than with my take on Oracle: the establishment won’t take use into the dreamy 2.0 world. Why not? Because they are “catching up”.

Either you are leading or you are catching up, but you certainly can’t be doing both.

March 24, 2008 | Filed Under CRM 

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