Well, I finally pulled the plug.  After 18 months of struggling to make Microsoft CRM (MSCRM) work for our organization “we” decided that enough is enough and ended our deployment project.  The story is a long painful one.  As a Microsoft Gold Partner we are given many benefits which include marketing, support and software.  One of the benefits at this level is MSCRM with more licenses than we will ever need.  Based on the fact that MSCRM was basically a zero “cost” to us and that it looked like it would do what we needed, we set forth on our project to replace our home grown solution. 

Anyone that has ever been part of a CRM deployment of any kind knows that this is not a process to be taken lightly.  Our planning could have been better, but I feel we had realistic goals of being up in 6 months and fully implemented in 12 months.  We started in January of 2005 with a successful installation and deployment of the product.  I tasked our software developers with converting data from our old system and integrating our service management into the product. When MSCRM 3.0 was released we upgraded and migrated the remainder of our service management to the improved service and contract management modules of MSCRM.  

This is where the honeymoon ended…  “Works the way you do” is the marketing line that Microsoft uses for MSCRM.  Well, if that is the case then I need to fire myself!  Some of the things that drove us nuts were: 

• Long processes needed to enter cases and service activities into the system 

• Incorrect accounting of contract time 

• Completely unforgiving - No changes to certain closed items by anyone (not even an admin) 

• Buggy 

So that seems like a short list, but when you consider the number of cases and service activities that our service manager enters each day, the first point becomes huge!  The issues we had with accounting of the contract is was completely unforgivable.  Due to “rounding errors” we had a heck of a mess on our hands with contact balances.  Microsoft did ultimately issues a hotfix based on our request, but it took months. And don’t think this is a case where we never asked for help.  I spent countless hours on the phone with Microsoft PSS on several issues.  NONE of the issues were ever resolved except for the rounding error.  Most of the time I just got the line that “it is working as designed…” 

I really could go on and on with issues, but this is a blog post, not a book.   MSCRM is not a bad product; it just wasn’t the product for us.  This was a good example of decision making based on perceived cost.  To us, the “cost” was very low, and we had blinders on because of the up front cost (zero dollars).  In the end the real cost was astronomical for a company of 15 employees.  Instead of getting the checkbook out and paying for the right solution upfront, we spent money and resources trying to make the wrong solution work. It was a tough decision to end the project, but it was time.  My only consolation as I wrote the check for the right solution was that at least I had learned a valuable lesson (again) from the experience. 

Dave

For those of you that deal with non-profit organizations there is a site that will help you save on software purchases.  The site is TechSoup.org.

TechSoup is an organization that acts like a clearing house for software (and a few hardware) companies that contribute products to qualified charitable non-profits.  The original draw to TechSoup was for the Microsoft licensing, but we have also had clients purchase Adobe, Quickbooks and Symantec products.

Cisco even offers up to $15,000.00 worth of network gear to a qualified organization although we have not yet taken advantage of that offer for any client. 

I discovered TechSoup about 3 years ago and it helped a client save several thousand dollars on a server upgrade. Since then we have had many clients utilize the TechSoup program.

One thing that I will point out is that there is a cost for ordering products from TechSoup.  TechSoup calles these “Administrative Fees”.  The fees are per product license and are very reasonable.  I assume these are simply the costs needed to keep this organization alive.  Any organization should be happy to pay these fees as opposed to the alternative of buying through commercial channels.  As an example, Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Premium sells for over $1100.00 from CDW only costs $60.00 from TechSoup.  Check out the rest of the products on the TechSoup Stock page.

Be sure to review the program rules from each vendor as they are all different.  I think that eligibility is all the same but the ordering rules can be different.

So I am talking to a good friend of mine about deploying technology for small business clients.  For many of our clients that have less that 50 desktops we install Microsoft Small Business Server 2003.  My buddy asked why we wouldn’t just save the customer the cost of the Microsoft licensing and install a Linux equivalent.  My response was, “there isn’t any Linux equivalent to SBS”.  Now my friend isn’t a Linux expert but he did have some good points so I decided to give Linux another shot.  I looked around and found that Ubuntu has been getting some good reviews so I went with that.

I downloaded Ubuntu 6.06 Server and installed it on a P4 with 2G of RAM.  The install was easy enough, actually VERY easy.  (My daughter accompanied me on this and helped name the server BobUbuntu).  After the install I decided to start my review with mail services.  I reviewed the Ubuntu documentation for mail services and that is where I gave up..  Is this what Linux distros have to offer for mail?  I’m sorry but our clients are used to a bit more functionality than a basic POP/SMTP server.

Ok, that wasn’t a fair fight at all and I didn’t give it a chance.  If this is typical of a Linux server mail system, then I don’t think Microsoft has anything to worry about.  Where is the web mail interface, calendaring, public folders, etc?  These are all things that are just part of Exchange.  What about collaboration tools like Sharepoint? 

I did a cursory search for connecting a mobile device to a Linux based mail server and found little useful information or anything that looked very easy.  These days connecting a Palm or Windows Mobile device to an Exchange server is child’s play.

I really don’t get it.  What benefits do small businesses get from implementing Linux?

I will openly admit that I am certainly lacking on my Linux skills, but I don’t see how even a seasoned Linux pro could provide the same functionality as Microsoft does with an SBS server.  I know I shouldn’t even post this, but I just can’t help myself.  I’ll take this as an opportunity for someone to point me in the direction of a resource that can prove me wrong.