Microsoft CRM

Went to the newcastle coders group last night, where Adam Cogan of SSW talked about Microsoft CRM 4 (or titan), which is in beta but gearing up for release over the next few months.

First impressions are - it's powerful, but slow. Totally web based, it surprisingly doesn't have any AJAX, and the interface can get pretty cluttered with pop ups everywhere and a not totally intuitive interface.

It's power however comes in it's customisation. The ability to define your own entities, attributes, forms, and work flows gives it huge potential to adapt to whatever you need it to do. It's also based totally on SQL Server so reporting services can be hooked in nicely. Adam, being a Microsoft regional director himself sold the product well, but the load times and confusing visual elements held him back a bit.

I liked the customisation features, but ultimately hated the interface. I still think there could be a middle ground niche market that's not M$ CRM or salesforce.com (which is also pretty pricey... 3K per year for 10 users), but takes the good features of them and makes them better then ACT! or LeGrand. What'll make such a niche product work will be that balance of extendability, ease of use and accessibility to the masses financially. Who knows... with Google in talks with Salesforce.com they might get there before everybody else.