Microsoft CRM 1.2 has only recently been released. Version 2.0 is expected to roll out a year from now, says Holly Holt, group product manager for Microsoft CRM. Meanwhile, the mobility extensions are set to hit the market this summer.

"The formal name will be 'Sales for Pocket PC 2003,'" she says. New capabilities in this app will allow users to select and review data they carry on the device, as well as easily capture information gathered during sales calls or meetings, the company said. When the device is synchronized with Microsoft CRM, all the data can be uploaded into the system automatically.

Friends and Foes

Not everyone is sanguine about the Pocket PC as a vehicle for on-the-road access. NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson calls it the "poor man's offline client and not very useful in the short and long term."

He told CRM Daily that NetSuite is banking on its belief that in five years from now, real-time wireless  access will be the primary input platform for sales force automation  and other applications.

On the other end of the spectrum are clients delighted with Microsoft CRM's mobile capabilities thus far -- not having even seen Pocket PC 2003.

Patrick Frei, vice president of GTI Technologies, a small distributor of high-tech manufacturing equipment, likes the tight Outlook integration  for e-mail and scheduling, and loves the ability to travel with his corporate database on his laptop. "That one feature alone makes it worthwhile," he told CRM Daily.

Microsoft CRM 1.2 -- GTI Technologies recently upgraded from 1.0 -- includes a SQL Server desktop edition that installs a SQL server  on the laptop and allows users to synch with the main back-end server. "There are a couple of options that allow you to tailor how much data you want to take with you," Frei said, "but if we want, we are able to carry our entire CRM database around on our laptops, and it is super easy to use."

1,600 and Counting

Sales for Pocket PC is but one part of Microsoft CRM's road map. On the market a little over a year, the application -- which was met with less than rave reviews initially -- has racked up quite a respectable installed base. According to Holt, Microsoft CRM has 1,600 customers today, not counting the 1,700 partners that use MS CRM.

Installments range from five seats to 2,000, with 25 typically the initial number of licenses purchased. "Also, we are seeing a lot of companies buy the Professional Edition, which has workflow capabilities," Holt told CRM Daily.

"One of the fun things customers are talking [about] today at the Convergence show are the escalation processes in Microsoft CRM -- not only in the customer-service module, but also in sales," Holt related. "These processes track, for example, how leads come in, which sales person is calling the lead back -- in other words, just generally tracking the escalation of the lead until completion."

Enhancements in 2.0 will focus around extensibility and total cost of ownership, she said.

"Having a 360-degree view of the customer is great, but it is only the first step," Holt cautioned. "Leveraging the data that CRM collects is where companies need to go with CRM -- not just having the data, but being able to work with data in an automated fashion."