Customers find kinks in Microsoft CRM

Companies installing Microsoft's new customer relationship management software say they are grappling with some flaws in the company's much-hyped debut product. The main complaint with the software, which Microsoft released in January, is that it inserts a long jumble of letters and numbers into the subject line of e-mails sent through the system. The string of characters, which Microsoft calls a generated unique identifier (GUID), could confuse e-mail recipients, or worse yet, cause e-mail sent to customers and prospective clients to be blocked by spam filters, according to Microsoft customers and resellers.

Microsoft has even promised to refund one unhappy customer, Promarketing Gear in Bellevue, Wash., the $7,000 the company spent on the software. Microsoft touts the software, called Microsoft CRM, as a tool to help small companies save money and boost customer loyalty by streamlining sales, marketing and customer service activities. "I am stunned that they think it's acceptable to put a number like that in your subject line," said Jeremy Whiteley, the head of Promarketing Gear, an eight-person company that makes promotional office supplies and gifts. "It looks horribly unprofessional," Whiteley added. "People will automatically assume it's spam, or some spam software will kill it."

Microsoft CRM is an important part of Microsoft's recent push to sell more software to small and mid-size businesses. It's also one of the first products that Microsoft's newly created Business Solutions division has built from the ground up since the company acquired Great Plains and Navision. Those acquisitions made the Redmond, Wash., company a contender in the multi-billion dollar business applications market along side SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems, Oracle and Best Software.

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