Microsoft Corp. announced the packaging and pricing strategy for its forthcoming Microsoft CRM product Thursday during the Silicon Valley Speaker Series in Mountain View, Calif.
The plan calls for customers to be able to choose from Sales or Service applications or the entire suite at Standard and Professional levels of functionality.
Pricing for Microsoft CRM will range from $395 per user plus $995 for the server for the Sales at the Standard level to $1,395 per user plus $1,990 for the server for the full suite at the Professional level.
Standard Edition, Sales, will include support for lead management and routing; opportunity management; correspondence/mail merge; account and contact management; activity and task management; security management; user management; calendar; business management; pre-built reports; and customization tools and utilities.
Professional Edition, Sales, will add support for workflow; sales process management product catalog; quote/order/invoices; quotas; territory management; sales literature; direct e-mail; competitor tracking; and back-office integration to Great Plains and Navision ERP applications.
Standard Edition, Service, will support case management; service requests and e-mail auto-response; problem resolution; notifications; account and contact management; activity and task management; security management; user management; calendar; business management; pre-built reports; and customization tools and utilities.
Professional Edition, Service, adds workflow, product catalog and back-office integration support, as it does for Sales, plus e-mail and contract management and routing and queuing of service requests.
Microsoft CRM, expected to be available in the fourth quarter, will be sold and implemented through Microsoft Business Solutions reselling partner channel, and partners and Microsoft Business Solutions customer support team will provide support, Microsoft officials said. The solution will be available on premises or as a hosted solution through select partners.
Also on Thursday, Microsoft Business Solutions, which was formed from Microsofts acquisition of Great Plains last year, welcomed Navision A/S to the fold as that $1.45 billion acquisition closed. Microsoft CRM will eventually support integration with Navisions Attain and Axapta applications, officials said, in addition to Great Plains Dynamics, Solomon and eEnterprise applications.
“What were doing now is increasing our efforts to tailor a product specifically for midmarket businesses that enables them to pursue hot opportunities,” said David Thacher, general manager of CRM at Microsoft Business Solutions.