Microsoft Picking Up CRM Customers From Its Rivals

Computerworld - DALLAS -- Although a latecomer to the CRM business, Microsoft Corp. has quietly been luring customers away from more established rivals such as Siebel, now part of Oracle Corp.

Several users at Microsoft's Convergence 2006 conference here late last month said they turned to Microsoft Dynamics CRM because of its integration with other Microsoft applications, including Dynamics ERP and Office.

In addition, a half-dozen users said Version 3.0, released last fall, corrects many of the performance, data synchronization and other problems in Versions 1 and 1.2 of the Microsoft CRM software.

Global Comfort Systems plans to replace its Siebel call center application with the latest Microsoft CRM version because it's integrated with the other applications and costs less, said Andrew Fralick, IT director at Global Comfort unit Webasto Product North America Inc.

Stockdorf, Germany-based Global Comfort expects the cost of installing Microsoft CRM to be about the same as it would be to upgrade its Siebel software, Fralick said.

His unit in Fenton, Mich., has been using the Microsoft CRM software for about two years through multiple versions; he called the newly installed Version 3.0 an enterprise-class product.

Fralick said Webasto's sales force did suffer through the defects of earlier versions of the Microsoft CRM software. "The [initial] product wasn't a flop," he said. "It just didn't work as billed. Now they have an excellent new version that's finally there."

'Worth It in the End'

The integration with Microsoft applications prompted Wilson Language Training Corp. in Oxford, Mass., to replace its Siebel 6.0 CRM software with Microsoft CRM 1.2 in January 2005, said Brian Kretchman, technical development manager at the provider of teacher training resources.

Despite the cost of the licensing, end-user retraining and the data cleansing associated with replacing Siebel, it was "worth it in the end," said Kretchman, a panelist at the Convergence conference.

Kretchman said customization of the Siebel software by sales personnel led to IT support problems. The more rigid Microsoft CRM process improved the efficiency of the software's 60 users, he said.

Wilson intends to upgrade to Microsoft CRM 3.0, most likely this fall, Kretchman said.

Helene Cole, CEO of Altara, an integrator in Basking Ridge, N.J., said her company replaced its Siebel software with the Microsoft offering in 2002.

Cole said the Siebel implementation worked well for large customers of its integration services but proved too complex and costly for internal use.

The Quiznos Master LLC, which sells sandwich-shop franchises, replaced a homegrown CRM application with Microsoft's CRM 1.2 offering in February 2005, said Kristie Reid, IT project manager for the company's Quiznos Subs unit. Quiznos now has 550 users of Microsoft's CRM software and will upgrade to Version 3.0 in the next couple of months, she said.

Reid said Denver-based Quiznos uses Dynamics CRM for consolidated reporting. The former CRM system required several different applications to create reports, she added.

"I'm not surprised to see [small and midsize] companies switching away from Siebel," said Josh Greenbaum, an analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting in Berkeley, Calif. "The cost and burden of a big CRM product like Siebel doesn't really make that much sense in [that] market."