Microsoft CRM wins CRM Magazine`s 2006 CRM Market Leader awards

Microsoft last week announced that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 has won CRM Magazine`s 2006 CRM Market Leader Awards in both the Midmarket Suite CRM and Small Business Suite categories.

Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft CRM, has also won the magazine`s CRM Influential Leader Award for the second consecutive year. These awards, as well as a new report published by Gartner Inc on Microsoft CRM, follow the recent announcement of over 100% growth for Microsoft CRM in the past fiscal year.

This includes over 50 000 new customer seats and major multi-thousand-seat enterprise wins in the last quarter, and validates the rapid growth of the product across all segments, geographic regions and industries.

The CRM Market Awards honour the individuals and companies that stand above the rest in customer relationship management (CRM) as a result of their significant influence, innovation or accomplishments. The CRM Market Leader award recognises the top vendors in eight categories. Each category includes six CRM vendors (one winner, four leaders and one company to watch), which are selected based on weighted criteria that include revenue, revenue growth, market share, reputation for customer satisfaction, depth of functionality and company direction.

The magazine`s CRM Influential Leader Award spotlights executives in the CRM marketplace who have left an indelible mark on either their industry or their company this past year. Microsoft executives accepted both awards on 18 September at the first destinationCRM 2006 conference in San Jose, California.

A report published by Gartner, the leading analyst firm in the technology industry, provides the latest evaluation of Microsoft CRM. The August 2006 report, titled "Status Report on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0", discusses the product`s first year on the market as well as customer reaction to the solution.

Trek to the summit

00Days

:

00Hrs

:

00Min

:

00Sec

"Gartner believes there`s a growing market for `pragmatic CRM`," says Brian Prentice, research director with Gartner and the author of the report. "This involves deployments, usually in subsidiaries and business units of Global 2000 organisations, along with discrete midsize businesses, in which the goal is to achieve higher user adoption rates for a system that automates one or two straightforward end-to-end sales, marketing and service processes, or a broader set of department-specific processes."

Microsoft Dynamics business group manager at Microsoft South Africa, Derek Kudsee said the recognition by CRM Magazine and the Gartner report affirms Microsoft`s strategy for developing and delivering powerful and affordable CRM solutions on a global scale.

"We believe this recognition by CRM Magazine and the Gartner report echoes what we continue to hear from our customers and partners," Kudsee said. "We offer a CRM product that`s easy to use and deploy, and is easily configured to meet the unique needs of businesses. The level of worldwide customer demand confirms the power of our vision for Microsoft CRM."

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 has achieved great market success around the world, with more than 7 500 customers and 250 000 users. The company recently announced plans for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live, a Microsoft-hosted CRM service that offers complete product functionality and a transparent migration path to the Microsoft CRM on-premise and partner-hosted offerings.

An electronic version of the Gartner report is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/itanalyst/default.mspx.