Salesforce.com’s Inability to Integrate Their Service with Microsoft Outlook 2010

• Tweet

• Tweet

Whenever I read a news story about a horrific event or a devastating natural disaster, my heart goes out to the victims of the tragedy. At the same time, deep down, I’m thinking “Whew! At least it didn’t happen to me.” Although there were no bombings or earthquakes involved, I had a somewhat similar experience today as I perused the client discussion forums on the Salesforce.com website.  Being a user of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, I have no firsthand understanding of the dissatisfaction that plagues these Salesforce.com customers, but I can most certainly sympathize with their distress.

The issue – once again – is Salesforce.com’s inability to integrate their service with Outlook 2010 in a timely manner.

At present, the Salesforce.com integration client for Microsoft Outlook is not yet compatible with the latest release of Office 2010, nor will the service work on a 64-bit system. There is no excuse for this, considering how Microsoft Office 2010 was released to the public a full two months ago – on June 15, 2010. Beta versions were made available well in advance of the release date, and developers, such as Salesforce.com, were given access to the code base so they could ensure compatibility with other applications. Remember Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrates smoothly with Outlook.

Any CRM user will tell you that having a tight integration with email applications is a key component of customer relationship management. Around 80% of businesses work with Outlook, and these users simply cannot live without the ability to synch their correspondence/calendar and create a history of interactions with their clients. Given the tremendous market share owned by Salesforce.com, one would think that the company would strive to better address their clients’ most pressing needs. This productivity-hindering issue is an exact repeat of the debacle that occurred after Microsoft’s 2007 Office release.

To make the situation even WORSE for both current and prospective clients, Salesforce.com is failing to advertise an honest representation of their service capabilities. If you browse the Salesforce.com website, you will find the following misleading claims:

Nowhere on the website (except in the complaint forums) will you find the admission that these fabulous integration tools apply only to systems that are still running Microsoft Office 2007.

When pressed for an explanation of their shortcomings, the customer service team loves to assure everyone that “Office 2010 support is coming in the next release”. This is a comforting bit of news to clients who optimistically assume that the “next release” is set to materialize in a week or two (which would still be too late) … but more inquisitive minds will demand to hear an exact date. The hard, cold truth:  Salesforce.com will not have a compatible email client until the winter of 2011. Despite the ‘chilling’ nature of both the projected season and its abysmal distance from NOW, the situation is not as bad as one might initially think. The forum moderators are quick to tell us (using their own unique interpretation of subject/verb agreement) that “the winter update releases generally comes out early in the year, so we’re expecting that this functionality will be available by January 2011.” Lovely, but this still leaves Salesforce.com customers floundering to survive without an important feature that they were able to utilize until the moment of their company’s upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010.

If a client’s computer runs on a 64-bit operating system (as most newer models do), the verdict is far more grim. In the words of Rajani, the Sr. VP of Software Quality and Performance Engineering, “We are also working on support for 64-bit Windows 7 but have not decided on a release vehicle for this yet.”

So, what is Salesforce.com – the self-proclaimed “leader in customer relationship management & cloud computing” – doing RIGHT NOW to help their clients combat their latest integration issues?  Nothing effective, it seems. When I researched the Salesforce.com customer service response to client queries for an immediate solution, I found many replies as vague and useless as the example below:

The basic gist of this message is “We have no solution for you, so we shall now wash our hands of your problem. Lucky for you, we provide a forum where our clients can gather and commiserate with one another. Nothing you post will generate a solution any sooner than winter of 2011, but I’m sure the opportunity to vent your displeasure will be ‘really helpful’ in a therapeutic sort of way.”

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that Salesforce.com offers NO solutions to their clients’ Outlook troubles. They suggest an option or two, but their quick fixes are as helpful as the disheartening expression that I hear so often when I stop to ask for directions back in my home state of Maine: “You can’t there from here” (or, with the Maine accent, “You cahn’t get theyah from heeah”).  The Salesforce.com team seems to be so fond of this expression, that they’ve adopted it as part of their overall operating strategy.

On first glance, this email to a distraught client appears to offer some useful advice:

For those of you who don’t know what is meant by “Salesforce Application Exchange”, let me enlighten you:

The ‘AppExchange’ works on a similar concept as buying iPhone applications from the iTunes Store – the software is developed by regular ol’ people and offered for sale to the masses in one convenient location. The difference between iTunes and AppExchange is that a programmer can list their product with Apple for a one-time fee of $99, whereas Salesforce.com charges their developers $5000 initially, then $2,500 for every subsequent year the software listing remains active. As I’m sure you can guess, AppExchange products are not sold for 99 cents, like the oh-so-illuminating flashlight application you bought for your iPhone.

In other words, if you are an Office 2010 user who wants your Salesforce.com CRM to function today with the same efficiency and utility that you had last May, your only choice is to pay out even MORE money to purchase a third-party fix to the problem.  Most forum members have settled for the LinkPoint Vue application which has a one-time fee of $29.95/user. While this solution may integrate with Outlook 2010, it is still missing some key features. According to people who are using LinkPoint Vue, there is no calendar synch (although this is something LinkPoint is working to add).

Another inconvenient suggestion is that customers might try installing Microsoft Office 2010 without Outlook 2010. While Outlook 2007 can technically co-exist with Office 2010, it’s not a recommended mix. Here are the steps one would have to take to get this solution to work (a process that seems to fit nicely with the aforementioned “you can’t get there from here” analogy):

1. Uninstall Office 2010
2. Install Outlook 2007
3. Install Office 2010 and select custom installation
4. Enable the installation of all Office 2010 applications except for Outlook 2010

You should note that by doing this you will lose some functionality, like mail merging and spell checking in Outlook. And let’s not overlook the most obvious sacrifice … rolling back to Outlook 2007 almost defeats the whole purpose of upgrading Office in the first place!

Don’t abandon hope yet, Salesforce.com clients! My favorite suggested “fix” is so cool that it solves both the Outlook 2010 issue AND the 64-bit problem. Simply install a virtual machine running a 32-bit version of Vista or Windows 7, load Microsoft Office 2007 into the virtual machine, and then install the current Salesforce.com Outlook connector. Everything will work perfectly!

As fun as it is to pretend that you’re Marty McFly racing his DeLorean back into the past, there are a few pitfalls with this final solution.  First off, how many people even know what a virtual machine is, let alone know how to deploy one? Virtual machines are great for developers, but they require more memory than the average business desktop has available. Without significant memory, both the host computer and virtual machine will run very slowly, and the set-up might even cause system instability.

Next, you have the licensing issue. A separate user license is required for each installation of both Windows OS and Microsoft Office, so, in order to properly comply with licensing laws, users would need to purchase an additional copy of both software applications. Let me quickly break down the per user cost you can expect to pay if you try to implement the brilliant virtual machine idea (these are the retail costs; volume licensing may be cheaper):
Windows 7 Professional = $299.99

Since you’ll be deploying this on a virtual machine that won’t have an existing operating system, you’ll need to purchase a full license rather than the lower upgrade price, so you’re looking at $299.99 per virtual machine (1VM per user).

Microsoft Office 2007 cannot be purchased from Microsoft directly, so you would need to find another vendor. A good estimate for Office 2007 Professional is about $155.

Adding these two software costs together puts you around $454.99 per virtual machine (per user). And that’s on top of what you’ve already paid to upgrade to Office 2010, of course. A hefty price all around, given that your virtual machine is only meant as a temporary fix until Salesforce.com releases a compatible client.

While none of the offered solutions to the Outlook integration problem are ideal, Salesforce.com clients are left feeling like they have no better options. Living up to their name, Salesforce.com ‘forces’ their users to adapt to whatever obstacles are thrown in their path. An illustration of the Salesforce.com mentality is found in this direct quote from Marc Benioff, the Chief Executive officer, during his address at the company’s own Dreamforce conference. In response to the question of users requesting new interface features, Benioff replied with, “What can you [a client] do about it? Nothing! You can harass us, send us email and lobby us.” Trapping hapless users within the confines of a service that does not respect their needs may be Salesforce.com’s “Dream”, but the perpetuation of this unhealthy customer relationship turns such events into a ‘NightmareForce conference’ for their victimized clients!

There IS a reliable solution to deploying a CRM that smoothly integrates with Outlook 2010, but you won’t hear about it from Salesforce.com.  If you switch to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, not only will you lower your monthly costs, but you will also gain the benefits of a more feature-packed Customer Relationship Manager with total power of choice. Among its many other advantages, Microsoft Dynamics is the only CRM on the market to offer native integration with all present and future versions of Outlook. At the Salesforce.com cost of $65/user/month, as opposed to Dynamic’s $44, you would expect their service to be far superior.  Actually, the opposite is true … to come even CLOSE to matching the core features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you would need to subscribe to the Salesforce.com Enterprise plan at the not-so-affordable cost of $125/user/month … and even then, you would still need to pay an additional fee in order to use their partner management features – the same Microsoft Dynamics CRM tools that are available to their users for free (using a free accelerator).

Given the dramatic differences in service levels between Salesforce.com and MS Dynamics CRM, why aren’t businesses switching platforms in droves? The main problem is that migrating to another CRM platform can be costly in terms of both time and money. It’s also a delicate process. The common feeling among clients who find themselves faced with a choice between making sacrifices in productivity and changing their CRM service, is that Salesforce.com is aware that most customers will not want to go through the somewhat-complicated process of switching from one platform to another. But while Salesforce.com banks on making such a transition seem difficult, the reality is that migrating your data to Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be practically painless. STREAMSOL’s team of experts is standing by ready to provide new clients with quick and reliable data migration solutions. In the long run, the continued cost and hassle a business will be subjected to when it remains at the mercy of Salesforce.com could far exceed the temporary inconvenience of transitioning to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. There’s really only one logical choice for clients interested in a cost-effective service with consistent usability!

Streamsol is Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Providing application hosting, software development, and consulting. Streamsol is recognized as a top ten Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner in the US.  Our Microsoft CRM practice revolves around three models: Microsoft CRM On-Premise, Hosted Microsoft CRM, and Hybrid Microsoft CRM. Our vision and commitment to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM framework is unrivaled.

by Streamsol, a Nevada Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Tags: CRM integration, CRM Software, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Nevada Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SalesForce vs. Microsoft CRM
Posted in About Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Compare CRM Packages, CRM Software Information, Dynamics CRM vs. Salesforce.com | 5 Comments »

Related Posts

1. Salesforce.com Troubles with Microsoft Outlook
2. Why Microsoft Dynamics CRM Beats Salesforce.com For Outlook To CRM Integration – Reason # 4, Delay In Synching Items To Salesforce.com
3. Why Microsoft Dynamics CRM Beats Salesforce.com For Outlook To CRM Integration – Reason # 1, Synchronization
4. Why Microsoft Dynamics CRM Beats Salesforce.com For Outlook to CRM integration – Reason # 6, Application Integration In Outlook
5. Microsoft CRMs Competitive Advantage vs. SalesForce.com