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Computerworld - Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft's CRM unit, talked to Computerworld's Marc L. Songini about the release of the company's long-awaited CRM 3.0 software, which it said last week will ship in early December, a few months earlier than expected. Wilson also explained why Microsoft jumped from Version 1.2 to 3.0, and he provided some details on the size of the company's CRM business.

Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft's CRM unit

Why did you push up shipments of CRM 3.0 from early next year to early next month? We had said we'd finish sometime in the first quarter of 2006. We finished coding back in May, and we just finished testing and everything else [last] Monday.

Microsoft's CRM software proceeded from Version 1.2 to 3.0. What happened to Version 2.0? We had initially planned to release 2.0 in the spring of this year. But [our] partners and customers said, "This is a good release, but it could be a game-changing release if you went back and did some additional work." We decided to put some more time in the development cycle and add some customer platform flexibility to make it easier to develop customized and vertical applications around CRM.

What are some of the features added after deciding to cancel Version 2.0? [Version 3.0] has the ability to add new objects with no coding, and it's fully upgradable and portable.

How did you accomplish this? Microsoft CRM is a very modern application, built in the last four to five years with a Web services architecture. You can automatically generate a new object and make that object live and work in the system. Before, it would have required a lot more coding to create customer objects.

How big is Microsoft's CRM business? We grew 100% last year and [foresee] a fast growth rate going forward. We have five and a half thousand customers now, with 150,000 [end] users.

How does the activity in the CRM business -- Oracle's move to buy Siebel and sell its OnDemand offering, and the continued growth of companies like Salesforce.com -- affect Microsoft's hosted CRM plans? It's not really affecting us. For hosting, we're bringing in subscription-based pricing through a partner network. Previously, somebody had to buy the license -- either the partner or customer.

What type of company is Microsoft targeting with CRM 3.0? We are selling from the smallest to the largest, bar none. For small businesses, we're releasing a small-business edition prepackaged for the Small Business Server. Our professional edition can fit withsmall businesses that have more complexity, as well as midsize and enterprise-size companies.

How does CRM 3.0 work with Outlook? We're going way beyond Outlook integration. We're offering a native Outlook experience, and many people will have no idea where Outlook stops and CRM starts. Expect us to integrate closely all the [business] applications over time.

Read more about CRM in Computerworld's CRM Topic Center.