CRM 3 Release 2 is on its way!!
I've been hit up a lot about CRM functionality and compatibility with 2007 Office and Vista at several TS2 events since August and I am happy to share some new information with you pertaining the release of Release 2 of CRM version 3. First of all, the CRM v3 R2 client will be compatible with 2007 Office and Vista. For those of you looking to make the jump to the new platform, please keep this in mind when you and your customers are planning your deployment.
Today I received a corporate communication regarding the release availablility and I got the OK to share it with you so here you go:
Here is an update on the V3 R2 release from the Senior Director of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Management team –
“Earlier this month we shared with you our excitement about having completed the development work for “Microsoft CRM V3 R2” (see http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2006/10/03/Microsoft-CRM-v3-R2-ships.aspx ).
We know that you are of course eager to get your hands on this release which will make the Small Business Edition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 work with Small Business Server 2003 R2. As you can probably imagine – the teams that produce the actual physical media (CDs) are currently fully booked with manufacturing of bits for Office 2007 and for Windows Vista and we have therefore had to find “alternative” ways to get this work in your hands.
We have updated the download available on Microsoft Downloads to fully include the slipstream release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM…. If you download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7d418781-69ad-422d-92fa-87fdb2538e2c&DisplayLang=en you will get the slipstream release.
In addition we have also made the re-release available on MSDN - there’s no direct URL to the download page as it’s unique for all subscribers. Instructions to the download are therefore:
1. Go to MSDN Subscriber Downloads at http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/ .
2. Sign into your MSDN Subscription benefits with the Windows Live ID (Passport) that is associated with your MSDN Subscription.
3. Once you're signed in, from the left-hand menu, navigate to Microsoft Dynamics | Customer Relationship Management (CRM) | CRM 3.0 | English | Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Professional Edition - Disc 1 (or Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition - Disc 1).
The version that is available via the above sites immediately is the English version – Our localization team has informed us about the schedule below for localized versions. We will make the localized versions available for download within a few days after theirscheduled completion dates.
A slipstream release also means that we basically will go through an update of our inventory of CDs as soon as we get the new CDs from our manufacturing facilities. If you are regularly working with the Small Business Edition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 it will be a good idea to download the re-release as soon as it is available for download so you have it on hand in case you need it.
We also know that several of you are looking for availability dates of the updated client we are working on – the client is basically a version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 that releases all the synergies between Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, Office 2007 and Windows Vista – internally we refer to this as our V3C release. We currently have this running in our own internal environments and we also occasionally show it externally at events – It is pretty cool! As soon as we have the full details available in terms of availability dates we will share them with you – as for the above – we will make it available via download as soon as completed and we will also have a detailed plan in terms of availability of localized versions of it at that time.