Microsoft will test its business acumen by the end of this year with new software for automating customer-service functions.
On Tuesday Microsoft is expected to detail plans for Microsoft Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, a new software package due in the fourth quarter of 2002, according to executives.
The software will represent Microsoft's entry into a new market, which could potentially antagonize relationships it has fostered with business software makers such as Onyx Software and Siebel Systems.
For Microsoft, the CRM software is significant in that it represents one of the first of several server-based products to be built by the company using its .Net software framework, an initiative the company has championed as a means of writing programs for Internet computing, or Web services.
Microsoft executives insist they are targeting an underserved market and do not intend to compete with partners. The company said the new CRM technology will not compete with an agreement inherited from Microsoft's Great Plains purchase to resell technology from Siebel. That pact was intended to serve high-end customers with thousands of employees.
Nevertheless, the move is sure to raise the ire of partners such as Onyx and Pivotal, and larger concerns such as Siebel, which has dominated the lucrative niche and built a multibillion-dollar business as a result.
News source: ZDNet News
