Microsoft CRM moves under the microscope
Published: 17 Apr 2002 12:01 BST
Small competitors say they are undeterred by Microsoft's interest in the market. Salesforce.com, a San Francisco-based company that serves up CRM over the Net, claims that Microsoft will not deter its own ambitions to become the leader in hosting CRM software for customers who access those programs over the Web.
In an e-mail sent to Salesforce.com employees after Microsoft's announcement, CEO Marc Benioff went so far as to say, "If Hasbro had built a CRM product, it would look like Microsoft CRM."
Such cockiness may be premature, according to analysts.
"If I were (a small company like) Onyx and Pivotal, I'd definitely be sweating bullets right now," said Enterprise Applications Consulting's Greenbaum.
Companies like Siebel, PeopleSoft, SAP and Oracle, which are targeting larger CRM customers, have said they remain vigilant in analyzing Microsoft's competitive moves, but they're also confident that the company lacks the expertise to build a CRM system for a Fortune 2000 company that requires custom-built software components and training.
These competitors "know where the lion traps are in the forest," said Katherine Jones, managing director for enterprise business applications at the Aberdeen Group technology consultancy. At the same time, Microsoft "can't really go down, so they have to go up," she said.
According to Greenbaum, what should particularly worry competitors is the muscle Microsoft can now flex through the prodigious sales channel it acquired with Great Plains. That will have "an enormous impact" on the market, he said.
Earlier this month Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates highlighted Great Plains as "a key part of Microsoft's vision" of the computing future. "It's a big commitment for us," Gates told a crowd of Great Plains customers at their annual conference in Orlando, Fla.
It's a commitment that analysts say shouldn't be underestimated.
"It would be a mistake to think that in purchasing Great Plains, Microsoft was trying to nibble at a segment of a market it didn't have much of a presence in," said Paul DeGroot, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, a technology consultant. "You just can't rule out Microsoft having larger ambitions for Great Plains."
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