For all those following the latest news in the CRM market, it’s evident that Microsoft’s recently announced future milestones are truly noteworthy.

In the latest Statement of Direction (May 2011) announcement, Microsoft has laid out plans to accelerate the development cycle of Dynamics CRM as well as hints to future significant features, probably most notably multi-browser and cross-platform support.

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Statement of Direction – May 2011 (PDF download link)

Accelerated development cycle

Since its inception in 2003, Microsoft CRM has evolved over five versions into Dynamics CRM 2011, the enterprise-class application and framework it is today.  Over the course of its history the Microsoft CRM development team traditionally released each version in 2-3 year cycles.  Each new major version required customers to plan each major upgrade extensively, at times with a sizable investment.

Per the new announcement, Microsoft has committed to shorter development cycles which will bring new enhancements and features to all Online and On-Premise customers.  This will allow users to enjoy the latest innovations as they are developed, as well as providing minimal impact to existing deployments.

The newly announced development cycle includes:

• Updates: similar to the current Update Rollups, these are enhancements that will be delivered to the Dynamics CRM platform semi-annually at Spring (Q2) and Fall (Q4) of each year.  Updates will not require significant implementation planning like Upgrades.  They will also deliver compatibility for future Server, SQL, .NET and Office versions.
• Upgrades: these are new future versions of Dynamics CRM that will provide the next level of milestone features to the platform.  These releases will likely require more implementation planning from customers than the Updates.  The next scheduled major release is for Spring (Q2) of 2012.

The Evolution of Social Media and Collaboration

The focus of Customer Relationship Management applications should be relationships, and the recent announcement for Dynamics CRM reiterates that emphasis.  Mentioned in the announcement is additional feature support for social media and collaboration tools.

Per the statement of direction, there will be new support for:

• Micro-blogging: encompassing important status updates and notifications regarding business events and actions.
• Business activity feeds: delivering configurable real-time notifications regarding important relationships and significant business events.
• Social intelligence: identification of data patterns and streams to enhance customer service and marketing decision-making.

The Perks of going Microsoft

If your organization is a “Microsoft shop”, there are clear advantages to deploying Dynamics CRM and investing in the other Microsoft technologies besides Office.

While it’s not really new news, Microsoft reiterated its commitment to extend capabilities across Microsoft products.  Its most recent example is the easy-to-deploy integration between Dynamics CRM 2011 and SharePoint 2010.   Other points of native integration for Dynamics CRM already include Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Office, as well as the ability to synchronize with back-office applications such as Dynamics GP. Deploying these investments will provide a new user experience as well as have clear business value.

Not mentioned in the statement is the recent sizable investment in Skype.  There’s a good bet that Microsoft has a plan for Skype integration in future updates to Dynamics CRM.  At this point in time, we can speculate that it could provide an enhanced call center solution.

Dynamics CRM anywhere, anytime, on any device

One of the early pain points that I’ve discovered in my experience with Dynamics CRM is its inability to function seamlessly with other browsers beyond Internet Explorer, and by extension other operating systems such as Mac and Linux.  There are new and persistent expectations with cutting-edge devices such as mobile smartphones and tablets.  While there may be competitive and technology reasons for this historical reliance on Internet Explorer, this limitation is unacceptable for some key users.  Workarounds like the compatible MSCRM Mobile Express solution and mobile apps help, but in the end cannot provide the full user experience native to the IE Web and Outlook Client.

To my great delight, Microsoft announced multi-browser and cross-platform support for the next future release of Dynamics CRM.  Per the statement:

• CRM anywhere: deliver immersive user experiences that match users’ particular context or work “mode” – whether that is on the road or in the office. This facilitates a new agility and productivity in how users respond to different situational requirements.
• Cross-device: provide device-specific application experiences that are natural and intuitive across a range of platforms and form-factors.
• Multi-browser: provide targeted user experiences that work on different web browsers by utilizing HTML5 for structuring and presenting content.

Microsoft naming HTML5 as the vehicle for multi-browser support is noteworthy.  Could this be the new future trend, versus platform-centric apps?

The New York Times article “In a New Web World, No Application Is an Island” addresses this very topic, and is a highly recommended read.  Per the Times article:

Engineers say the technology will make it possible to write Web applications, accessed with a browser, that are as visually rich and lively as the so-called native applications that are now designed to run on a specific device, like an iPad or an Android-based tablet.

HTML5 has shown to be quite promising.  Dynamics CRM is positioning itself to be at the forefront of this new web application technology.

Conclusion

There are clear advantages to combining other Microsoft business technologies with Dynamics CRM, and will only be easier to integrate in the future.   Key pain points in the past (such as multi-browser support) will be addressed, and new social collaboration tools to enhance Dynamics CRM are promised and will be soon forthcoming.

These key initiatives will continue to keep Microsoft Dynamics CRM an innovative and competitive leader in the enterprise CRM market.