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Microsoft Corp. has picked Avaya Inc., Basking Ridge, N.J., to help it beef up the ability of its new Microsoft customer relationship management software to handle the phones.
Avaya, a communications technology company, has agreed to license Microsoft CRM technology and integrate it with the Avaya IP Office system, the firms say.
The companies have predicted that the first version of the Avaya IP Office system with Microsoft CRM capabilities could be available by the end of June.
Insurance call-center technology experts suggest, however, that the real news may be that Microsoft is leaving room for Avaya and Avayas competitors to continue to sell the software that runs the telephones.
Insurers and other companies waited for months to see what features Microsoft would include in Microsoft CRM Version 1.0. When Microsoft introduced the system in January, experts concluded the system lacked many of the features needed to manage sophisticated telephone systems right out of the box.
"Microsoft CRM in and of itself does not have extensive call-center functionality," Microsoft spokesman Jamey Chown concedes.
Version 1.0 focuses mainly on managing information drawn from the Microsoft Outlook electronic mail system, according to Microsofts own marketing materials and product presentations.
Insurers and insurance brokers who want to add Microsoft CRM to sophisticated call-center systems today probably would have to put a team in charge of connecting the system to new or existing telephone management systems, experts interviewed say.
Even if Microsoft CRM had everything a company needed to manage its telephones, some insurers and agencies say they might wait awhile before adopting it.
"I believe its a step in the right direction, but I believe companies are a little hesitant to implement it," says Peter Kasabov, president of Connextions.net Inc., Orlando.
Customers worry about the problems that software companies often have with the first versions of complicated new products, Kasabov says.
