Wow, all kinds of new stuff coming out today for Dynamics CRM.

Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables users to access Dynamics CRM through a web browser on a mobile device such as a phone or PDA.

This is great for road warriors such as salespeople who need to access information about clients while traveling. You can use Mobile Express much like you use regular CRM. So you can get to Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities and most other CRM entities right from your phone.

A couple of things worth noting.

Microsoft says Mobile Express works well for “occasional access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM” and over “High-speed networks”.  What this translates to is it’s great for quickly checking stuff like a phone number or quote but you wouldn’t want to do the majority of your daily CRM tasks with it. And since it’s web-based you must have internet access to use it because it doesn’t store data on the mobile device and therefore doesn’t synchronize data. But most mobile devices that have internet access usually always have connectivity so I don’t see this as a big deal. If you need offline access see my post about other mobile options for Dynamics CRM.

Here’s more detail and the download for Mobile Express.

As an update to a post I did last month about mobile phone options for Microsoft Dynamics CRM,  Softtrends just released Mobile CRM+ which works on Blackberries, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones.

It has a few interesting features:

• It can record calls and/or take voice notes which can be stored as Activities in CRM
• It has a DVR style audio buffer that allows you to selects key points of recordings
• It works offline

Microsoft just released a preview of the Dynamics CRM 4.0 Mobile Express software. It’s available at Microsoft’s Connect website. This is the web based version that’s supposed to work on most web-enabled mobile phones.

For a Windows Mobile version Microsoft partnered with TenDigits to jointly develop one.

TenDigits also makes a Blackberry mobile version for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Several other companies make mobile device software for Microsoft Dynamics CRM including:

• CWR Mobility has a Windows Mobile version called Mobile CRM.
• c360 makes a Windows Mobile version for Dynamics CRM 4.0 which appears to be licensed from CWR Mobility
• Logotec has Mobile@Connector which is also Windows-based.

Softtrends just released a mobile offering for Dynamics CRM 4.0 named Mobile CRM+ http://www.crmmobileplus.com/msdynamics.html. Most of the Dynamics CRM mobile options currently available have fairly basic functionality or functional constraints. This one caught my eye with some interesting features:

·         Available for Windows Mobile, Symbian/Nokia, and Blackberry Curve devices

·         Supports Dynamics CRM Online (formerly Dynamics CRM Live)

·         Can capture device camera images and attach to any entity such as Leads, Accounts, Contacts, etc

·         Can capture device microphone recordings to attach audio annotations to entities

·         Can record incoming and outgoing phone calls and attach to Leads or Contacts

·         Works online and offline

One potential issue is it appears to have a basic interface that isn’t geared toward the Microsoft look and feel. I haven’t tested it yet so I’m not sure exactly what it looks like and how well the interface works. It definitely has some promising features though.