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Strategies & Market Trends : Technical analysis for shorts & longs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (36948)	5/4/2002 11:52:38 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69307

Microsoft seeks (and finds) a new market to dominate CRM startups face a new competitor. By Brian E. Taptich April 25, 2002 Microsoft's announcement that it would enter the market for customer relationship management (CRM) software--applications that help companies track information about customers--was met with the obligatory volley of choreographed public relations responses. Each ostensible competitor claimed the software behemoth was a valuable partner and that [insert CRM firm name]'s prospects would be largely unaffected--nay, enhanced--by the arrival of their newest and biggest peer. In fact, every company reliant on a CRM franchise has plenty of reason to worry. In imminent danger are richly funded private companies that have spent years and scads of venture capital building their franchise around the same small to midsize businesses that Microsoft will target. "Microsoft presents more of an immediate challenge to CRM startups," according to Louis Columbus, senior analyst with AMR Research in Boston. "Those companies not yet established will have to be very aware of what is going on." Indeed. Available as software or as a service, Microsoft's CRM offering promises to provide small and midsize businesses--most of which are unable to afford large IT staffs--all of the capabilities of widely used products from companies like Epicor Software, FrontRange Solutions, Oncontact Software, Salesforce.com, and UpShot. The research firm Jupiter Media Matrix estimates that purchases of CRM applications by small and midsize U.S. businesses will increase from $971 million in 2001 to $3.4 billion in 2006. And Microsoft has repeatedly proven its ability to extend its franchise into huge, fractured, and untapped markets. Each of these startups needs look no further than the slow demise of Netscape's Web browser market share for a cautionary tale. The first significant application to emerge from last year's $1.1 billion acquisition of Great Plains Software, Microsoft CRM is a departure from the company's usual role of providing infrastructure software to CRM application companies like Siebel Systems, Pivotal, and Onyx Software. Despite Microsoft's gentle assurances that it has no interest in competing with entrenched CRM companies (practically all of which it counts as partners), the software giant has never been one to tread lightly. Microsoft CRM won't be available until the fourth quarter. Between now and then, a host of CRM companies--particularly those subsisting on venture capital--would do well to react in a manner more strategic than a simple press release. redherring.com {Harry: Any one have a list of CRM companies?]