Brand new news for a brand new year

It’s good to see you here in 2018. We kind of put a pause on things in 2017, but not because Microsoft wasn’t doing things.

We’ve got a lot of 2017 news to catch up on, and we’re going to give you some new news as well.

New news?

…whatever…

Goodbye Dynamics 365 Business Edition

Late 2017, Microsoft announced that they would be simplifying the Dynamics 365 product line by unifying the Enterprise and Business Editions. This has several advantages for customers, including eliminating any potential issues with customers migrating to a different edition. Now it’s one seamless product that scales based on your business size and your needs.

While this move is great for customers, we here at Azamba will miss the continued opportunities to make fun of the overlong product names “Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales Enterprise Edition” and “Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales Business Editions.”

May they rest in peace.

Marketing Add-On Options Abound

In related news, one of the most interesting and exciting developments that was associated with the Business Edition was the development of a small business marketing module that worked seamlessly with the sales and service modules of Dynamics 365. With the unification approach, the marketing functionality seems to have been pruned from the release schedule.

This leaves customers with two excellent choices with the Adobe Marketing or Click Dimensions add-on tools.

We use Click Dimensions internally and find it easy to use and invaluable with our own marketing efforts. Now if we could only figure out a way for it to write punchlines for our news articles…

Bitcoin and BlockChain Coming to CRM?

Bitcoin is all the rage these days and it seems like everyone is talking about it. Unlike the similar Dutch Tulip craze of the 1600s, Bitcoin seems to have some substantial value, particularly in the underlying technology called BlockChain which is used to create secure online transactions.

At its most basic, BlockChain allows for secure, redundant, trustworthy transactions between multiple parties. It’s not exactly clear how this will benefit CRM applications, although it should facilitate the ability for CRM systems to integrate with outside systems in a trustworthy and secure fashion.

It is unconfirmed whether the next release of Microsoft Dynamics 365 will allows sales people to accept commissions in Dynabucks, the Microsoft answer to Bitcoins.

Dynamics Financial Results Smash 2017 Projections

Speaking of making money, Microsoft recently announced amazing end-of-year financial results where they easily exceeded analyst expectations. Dynamics revenue for the year was up an astonishing 70%.

These results don’t surprise us, as we are enthusiastic about the overall Microsoft strategy and have seen how far the product has advanced in the last few years. The future looks very good for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft customers. It almost makes us feel sorry for Salesforce.com.

Well, no. Not really.

That’s it for this edition of CRM News. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you on a more regular basis in 2018. We have a whole new release schedule, with three shows coming out each week, so tune in and subscribe, and don’t forget to like our videos!