I’ve been playing around with my website I setup on Microsoft Office Live’s Small Business Services website. I initially just set it up to test the service and learn a little bit about it, now I’m thinking I may actually start using the domain for somewhat of a client portal of my own.

I received a flyer in the mail recently reminding me of the services available to me, but also letting me know that many of the services that were “premium” are now free.

• Advanced web site design: if it’s web based still no use to me, if it’s web space I can upload my own ASP.NET pages to, then that will be perfect!)
• Contact Manager (NOW FREE): this could really be a benefit to me if I use it efficiently.
• Business Applications (NOW FREE): not sure about this, will have to investigate it further
• E-mail Marketing (NEW): At this point it’s not something I’m going to pay to use for what I can produce all that I need with free methods.
• Store Manager (NEW): I do have more clients wanting to sell products on the web, so this could be interesting.
• adManager: Again, not something I’ve needed to take too much advantage of at this point.

Are you using Microsoft Office Live’s Small Business Services? Do you host your website through them? I’d love to hear how you’re using it and see what you’ve got available online through their services. Let me know in the comments.

Post from: EveryJoe

Improved Microsoft Office Live Small Business Services

Building a better mousetrap is one thing. Persuading businesses to try it is another. Consider the challenge of Indianapolis-based marketing-software maker Autobase Inc. About 1,400 U.S. automobile dealers have installed Autobase’s system, which helps manage sales leads, customer contacts and records. Autobase sales topped $16 million in 2005, and the company made both the Inc. 500 and Deloitte & Touche’s Technology Fast 500 for two years running.

But to make inroads at the remaining 21,500 U.S. dealerships, Autobase must get them to switch from another marketing system—or, more often, adopt one for the first time.

This month, the 140-employee company helmed by CEO W. Scott Webber inked a partnership with tech heavyweight Microsoft Corp. that might fuel additional growth. The deal will allow Autobase to piggyback its software on Microsoft’s as the Seattle company launches products aimed at auto dealers.

I’m curious as to what types of products Microsoft is aiming at auto dealers? Is it Microsoft Dynamics there mainstream CRM product?

Source: Autobase teams with Microsoft: Local software maker sees big potential in partnership

Post from: EveryJoe

Autobase Inc. Carpools with Microsoft

In searching I found this blog post from Matthew Wittemann and his experiences with a Microsoft CRM 1.2 Redeployment. He shares his experiences and maybe more importantly his pitfalls and obstacles. Good information if you might be forced to walk this path in the future or have to do something similar.

Regretfully, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Wouldn’t that make a great song?

Post from: EveryJoe

Microsoft CRM 3.0