Microsoft is gearing up to release a phalanx of native mobile applications for its CRM software, with clients aimed at BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, iOS, and Android 2.2 and higher devices, the company announced yesterday.

The release, which is scheduled for the second quarter as part of Microsoft’s regular CRM (customer relationship management) service update, will also build on existing browser support with Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari, running on Macs, iPads and Windows PCs.

In the future the native mobile applications will be updated at the same time, but features and functions may vary depending on the relative capabilities available on each platform, said Craig Dewar, director, Dynamics CRM.

“We’re doing as much as we can on each platform, and not choosing to do the lowest common denominator approach. We’re optimising for the device. You chose that device, and we should light it up as much as possible,” he said.

The new CRM mobile capabilities also include a hosted-server component that provides management and security, including the ability to remotely wipe devices of sensitive data should they become compromised. IT administrators will also be able to “mobilise” all of their CRM customizations without having to re-code them, Dewar said.

Each native application will allow for offline usage and data synchronisation with online systems, according to a statement.

Microsoft is charging $30 per user per month for the mobile service, with each subscription allowed up to three devices. It is a purely user-based pricing model, with no separate fee for the hosted-server tools.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s close CRM competitor Salesforce.com offers a Lite mobile application at no charge, with the full-featured version available at no additional cost for Unlimited Edition subscribers but $50 per user per month for Professional and Enterprise edition customers.

While other CRM vendors, including Salesforce.com, have moved quickly to embrace HTML5 for mobile in hopes of writing a single rich application that will run on multiple platforms, Microsoft is taking a more deliberate pace.

“We’re watching HTML5 very closely, we’re working on it. It’s a very important development technology. But our focus is to provide the best possible experience on native devices today,” Dewar said.

Microsoft will likely do more with HTML5 upon the arrival of Windows 8, which will provide ample support for it, he added.

Another feature planned for the upcoming service update, which will apply to both the on-premises and online versions of the software, is Activity Feeds, which provides users with a familiar Twitter and Facebook-like stream of updates on information in the CRM system.

Microsoft is also planning to add new BI (business intelligence) capabilities to the on-premises version, which are based on the Power View visualisation technology in SQL Server 2012. Those capabilities will become available in the online version over time, Dewar said.

Source:http://www.computernewsme.com/2012/02/microsoft-to-release-native-mobile-apps-for-its-crm-software/

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software maker, said it’s eliminating a “small percentage” of marketing jobs as part of a previously reported reorganization of the department.

“Given the rapid changes in technology and the shifts in how our customers connect with Microsoft, great marketing is more important than ever to Microsoft’s future success,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. “We’re taking steps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our marketing.”

The cuts follow a marketing review aimed at reducing overlapping jobs and better responding to competitors like Apple Inc. and Google Inc., people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg last month.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, spent $13.9 billion on sales and marketing in fiscal 2011, a 5.5 percent increase from the previous year. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, who named Chris Capossela as his new marketing chief last year, didn’t think the company was getting enough return on those marketing dollars, the people said in January.

The software maker had 25,000 sales and marketing workers as of June 30, the end of its fiscal year, the company said in a filing, without specifying how many focused on marketing. The company had a total of about 90,000 full-time employees.

Microsoft shares rose 1.2 percent to $29.89 at the close in New York. The stock has gained 6.8 percent in the past 12 months.

Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-01/microsoft-to-eliminate-small-percentage-of-marketing-jobs-1-.html

Global software giant Microsoft says its lawyers have swooped on four rogue computer dealers in Pretoria, who were selling fake software to consumers.
The retailers were bust after the company’s mystery shoppers found the shops were selling new PCs loaded with pirated Microsoft software, either at a full or discounted price.

Three of the resellers in question have signed formal civil settlement agreements with Microsoft and the company is involved in a legal process with the fourth retailer. Microsoft channel compliance manager, Wesley Lewis, says the company may look at criminal or civil action in the fourth matter.

Microsoft would not provide details on the settlements, but Lewis says the dealers have not been prohibited from selling its products. The raids form part of an ongoing series of crackdowns on rogue resellers, he says.

The software company is investigating “dozens” of computer dealers suspected of selling fake or illegally licensed software, says Lewis.
Counting the cost

Microsoft did not seize any software in the Pretoria raid, so it cannot quantify losses to the company. However, it estimates that “legitimate resellers are losing millions of rands a month to rogue dealers selling unlicensed software, at a price legitimate sellers cannot compete with”.

“It’s entirely a lost sales equation. Look at it this way: If 60 rogue dealers – and there are more than that in Gauteng alone – sell just two computers each a day with illegal software on it, we could be looking at losses to the industry of more than R4 million per month,” says Lewis.

Pirated software costs the local economy about $513 million – or about R4.2 billion – each year through lost sales, ITWeb recently reported.
Lewis says pirated software also exposes end-users to risks, as fake software is vulnerable to computer viruses, malware and hackers.

Source:http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51071:microsoft-nabs-software-pirates

Going by the numbers, Nokia (NYS: NOK) just delivered a horrible quarter. I mean, a terrible, brutal performance. Sales fell 21% year-over-year, led by 31% fewer smartphones finding new homes. Average selling prices also declined across the board. All told, earnings fell 73% to $0.08 per American Depositary Receipt, and operating cash flows crashed just as hard.

But Nokia shares are floating up today nonetheless. Wall Street analysts would have settled for earnings of about $0.06 per ADR, though the $13.4 billion revenue target still proved a bit steep.

More importantly, the much-heralded partnership with Microsoft (NAS: MSFT) is starting to pay dividends. The first Windows Phone models have made their way to markets in Europe and Asia. The Lumia line is also trickling into North American stores as T-Mobile and AT&T (NYS: T) have gotten their mitts on one model each. Support from the network providers is crucial to mobile success, and Nokia never had much of that TLC in America before.

So far, Nokia has sold over 1 million Lumia handsets, That may not sound impressive next to the millions and millions of iPhones Apple (NAS: AAPL) ships every quarter, but every journey has to start with a single step. One million units amounts to over 5% of Nokia’s smartphone sales in the quarter, using a totally new brand to present an unproven platform. That’s not a bad start. Recall that Apple sold 1.1 million iPhones in that storied handset’s first quarter, and you get the positive picture.

Reality check
So is the optimism totally justified? I’m not so sure.

Despite the similarities, this is a very different situation than what Apple was facing five years ago. Apple was essentially inventing the smartphone market, and had never before sold a phone; Nokia can fall back on a decade of global market dominance, and smartphones are now as common in the global marketplace as sand on a beach. Under these circumstances, even a brand-new platform should be able to get up to speed faster.

But the real litmus test will come in the next couple of quarters. Will Lumia gain traction and build the Windows Phone brand, the way Microsoft intended? Or will Nokia find itself spinning its wheels without moving anywhere? These phones need to replace Nokia’s old Symbian smartphones very quickly, and at a price premium at that. And the combined unit sales must bounce back to overall growth right away.

Otherwise, the Lumia will be known as a failed experiment in rebranding and Nokia will join fellow old-school phone titan Research In Motion (NAS: RIMM) in the race to the bottom. Who can sell more micro-margin handsets in Africa and South America? I don’t really care. Neither should you.

The challenges in Nokia’s path
So we’re looking at a polar outcome here: Nokia will sink or swim with the Lumia line. Today, investors see some light at the end of that tunnel. But it’s a big gamble. Nokia is fighting multiple headwinds:

* Windows-powered phones haven’t been cool since, oh, 2006. The new platform is very different, but the brand damage may linger.
* Nokia was never big in North America, even at the height of its powers. This market sets the tone for the mobile space on a global level, because most of the innovation comes from our continent.
* It may be better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but that isn’t necessarily true for brand strength. Nokia has been a well-known cell phone giant for years, and consumers have seen it reduced to a minor bit player. Does that backstory make you long for a Nokia phone? Didn’t think so.

Nokia has a lot of work to do here. I’m not willing to bet against the Finns today, because they might just pull it off. But the company is on notice: I’ll sing a very critical tune unless the next two quarters show real signs of a Lumia-driven turnaround. This might just be the next RIM or Palm disaster in the making.

Source:http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/01/26/a-software-reboot-might-just-save-this-ailing-phon/