Microsoft Dynamics CRM – 10 Years of Business and Professional Personal Success

This past month I celebrated 10+ years of business and professional success with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM product. In early 2003 I went to a Microsoft event at a local hotel and witnessed the 1.0 or 1.2 version of the product. I don’t recall exactly which version they demoed. I immediately recognized that Microsoft ‘got it’ with the integration into Outlook as it’s strong suit.

Up until that time I had been fixing customer’s implementations of Goldmine, Maximizer, Talisma, Act and others. After coming away from the demo I decided that we would shift our business model to implementing Microsoft’s product. We made this decision for 3 reasons:

1. Microsoft wasn’t going to go out of business.

2. Outlook integration.

3. Partner channel focused.

As I look back on it, the decision was solid then and has proven itself over the last 10 years. I look forward to the next 10 years and kicking it off this year with CRM 2013 and the new ‘Orion’ user interface.

While rummaging around in my Microsoft Certified Professional account I noticed that back in the Spring/Summer of 2003 was when I took my first CRM exams.

Looks like the applications exam was for 1.2 and the other two were for the 1.0 version of the product.