Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

It looks like it is now official -- Microsoft CRM 4.0 has been released to manufacturing and should be available for download soon (any day now).  There many great new features of the new release of Microsoft CRM, but when you look past the new duplicate detection, multi-tenancy, data imports, etc., what we are most excited about are the following:

Business Modeling

With Microsoft CRM 3.0 it was often difficult to truly model a business due to the limitations of the types of relationships available.  Microsoft CRM 5.0 introduces two new relationships, which eliminate the barriers that existed before:

• Many-to-Many
• One-to-Many (System-to-System)
• Self referential
• Multiple relationships between entities

By being able to more closely model a business the user experience is greatly enhanced through easier navigation, a more intelligent data model, and the flexibility to customize the system on an individual basis.  No longer do we need to explain to our clients why it is not possible to have two contacts linked to a single record :-)

CRM Live

The introduction of CRM Live opens the world of Microsoft CRM to a new subset of businesses.  As opposed to an on-premise deployment, there are no hardware costs associated with CRM Live and the licensing model allows smaller businesses to enjoy the same functionality larger ones have traditionally been able to implement.

Of course an on-premise deployment allows for greater flexibility and customization, and for larger businesses it is still the right choice -- especially where their business processes necessitate customizations beyond what can be achieved "out of the box".  However, CRM Live also supports much of the same configuration options allowing ISV's to offer compelling vertical solutions in a true SaaS model.