CRM 2011 – Coming Soon – David Yack’s new Book – Using Silverlight with CRM 2011

When I heard the mighty Yack (David Yack blog) was writing a book about CRM 2011 and silverlight I thought this was an excellent combination.  I feel I have got to know David quite a bit after watching all the CRM 2011 Development videos which are included in the CRM Development Kit.

I have been interested in what I have heard about silverlight (Microsoft version of Flash!) and would like to learn more about it, I would also like to learn about how you can use it with CRM 2011.  David’s new book is going to do just that because the book is going to do what it says in the title

Using Silverlight with CRM 2011

you can read about him giving a brief description of the book on his blog here

So why am I talking about the book which isn’t released until March.  Well on his blog he asked for people to help proof read the book, I volounteered and today I have been reading some of the book. I cant say much about it but so far I found it interesting and easy to read, it will be a great book for .NET/CRM developers who want to learn about Silverlight and how to use it with CRM 2011.

The only downside to this at the moment is I have only read one chapter and now want to read some more

 

 

Advertisement

CRM 2011 – Will CRM Online be on the increase in 2011

When I watched the official CRM 2011 global release, I was interested that Microsoft were really pushing their on-line hosting, saying they had beefed up the amount of servers they had getting ready for the increase in the number of people in the CRM cloud.

For me it seems like Microsoft are replacing creating the operating system and basic office package and instead offering people the choice of Microsoft hosting their CRM solutions.  I can see this type of solution becoming more popular because why do customers really need to buy servers to host CRM applications, especially now that microsoft has enabled some customizations of CRM in the cloud.

I read this article about some benefits of CRM-online

the top five benefits and see if they apply to you:

1. Subscription-based pricing: You pay as you go, often on an annual basis, unlike conventional on-premise systems where you have to make a major up-front investment in licenses, hardware and software. You benefit from better cash flow and far greater IT flexibility.
2. Lower overhead: Upgrades, maintenance, and system administration take place in the cloud and are managed by the vendor, so you don’t have to spend nights or weekends supervising a new version upgrade or a failed server. Studies find that cloud-based business software cost 50% less than on-premise software over a four-year period for a 100-employee company.
3. High availability: Cloud software architectures are designed from the ground up for maximum network performance, so they frequently deliver better application-level availability than conventional, on-premise solutions.
4. Security: For many companies, the level of security and availability, disaster recovery and back-up provided by a software-as-a-service provider far exceeds that which they can provide themselves.
5. Ease of access at any time, and from anywhere: SaaS software is “always on,” making it easy to grow your business and support remote workers and locations, or support a highly mobile sales or service team, because people can access the cloud any time, day or night, from any browser, desktop, or mobile device around the globe, 24×7.

 

I saw this video from Software advice where they interview Brad Wilson from Microsoft who is discussing how customers will easily be able to switch from on premise to the cloud easily.  This could be important factor in allowing customers to switch easily to suit their needs.  In the previous video with Brad he said that the cloud offering my microsoft costs a third of the price of salesforce, that is a very big saving for a large company.