Convergence 2010 Recap

The recent Microsoft Convergence conference was a good show. From my CRM-centric perspective I’ll fondly remember it as the “cloud computing and social CRM Convergence”. (Speaking of social, here’s a history of the real-time Twitter conversation on Convergence 2010. Here’s a preview of Convergence 2011!)

Anyway…my Convergence 2010 recap:

Microsoft is all-in when it comes to cloud computing. (Did I already say that?) Putting it up there with the move to the GUI and the emergence of the web definitely drives home the point.

The poster-child Dynamics cloud app is Dynamics CRM Online. My personal view is that the CRM Online team has set the standard for how business cloud computing should be done. There was of course lots of discussion around Dynamics CRM Online, but I was surprised by how little there was about cloud versions of the ERP apps. On the other hand, I’m so focused on CRM I might have missed that discussion…The two most important things I learned about CRM/CRM Online at the show were:

1. May 2010 Service Update. When you’re a CRM geek and your and most of your clients’ production platforms are CRM Online, these service updates are like Christmas coming twice a year. The most important features seem to be multiple language support (which “shipped” early, by the way; I started using it on April 28), and the new eService portal/accelerator (which unless I’m mistaken is somehow related to the ADX Studio technology, but I need to learn more about this.).
2. The new SDK release, also set for May. What I’ve heard about this sounds like it will be important, and the most important new stuff sounds like the built-in Azure support. I don’t know how this will be implemented yet (although it sounds like there will be Azure web services exposed as part of it), but it will likely be especially important for CRM Online, which has been crippled compared to on-premise because of its lack of support for plug-ins, ASPX extensions and custom RS reports

Besides the Cloud, the most important theme discussed at Convergence was Social CRM. That’s too big a topic to do justice to in a recap, so I’ll cover it in its very own article. I talked about it a little bit in my introduction to the Dynamics CRM User Group’s April meeting. Fortunately I remembered to press the “record” button in Camtasia before I started talking, so here’s the video, Enjoy!