VDI Has Its Own ‘Elixir’ Guaranteeing User Adoption of Any Line-of-Business Application

VDI Has Its Own ‘Elixir’ Guaranteeing User Adoption of Any Line-of-Business Application
By now most companies have been able to integrate their applications through various available technologies. The weakest link of such integration, though, has been the lack of intuitive user interface. Until the last week when Microsoft presented the sample code and technical information for its new project Elixir that integrates Outlook with Siebel CRM.
Microsoft initially began working on this project to solve its own integration problems. The companies’ sales people had difficulties using Siebel CRM, the CRM application used by Microsoft. “We have tons of customer information and the challenge is how to get that information to people when they need it so they can deliver better service and support to customers,” said Charles Fitzgerald, general manager of platform strategy for Microsoft, “The beauty of the Outlook interface is it is so recognizable that retraining costs are minimized”. So, by integrating Outlook with customer data, Elixir met one of the major business challenges Microsoft employees faced.

Software solution providers and consultants positively reacted to the Microsoft’s smart move. Outlook has long been used as an ‘easy’ CRM by users, as it is a highly adopted personal information manager providing email and contact management abilities so useful in dealing with customers. “They’re trying to make the Outlook client a front-end for processes, and it makes sense,” said Fred Reede, president of a CRM consultancy. “Any sort of business has to move information around. If I have Outlook, I have tasks, calendars that can be shared. With some more horsepower and integration, if you have Outlook and I have Outlook we can make appointments even if we don’t have Exchange [at the back end].”

VDI has long been beyond the hottest trend of 2006- Outlook integration. During the years, we have designed and delivered integration solutions for Salesforce.com, Amdocs, Hummingbird and Pivotal. Our approach is unique in a sense that we don’t simply integrate but meld the CRM application’s functionality into Outlook. This allows preserving a native Outlook experience, thereby solves the problem of user adoption by concentrating on user productivity features and blurring the lines between client-side applications and Outlook.
We adopt technologies similar to the one deployed by Microsoft, but design solutions that are faster and cheaper than Elixir (in accordance with the official information by Microsoft, the company spent nine months and $500,000 to develop Elixir) and much more sophisticated in details. For further information check our web-site at www.vdiweb.com/services/outlook-
integration.html or send an email to info {at} vdiweb(.)com.

About VDI

Innovation, insight, and a wealth of talent have allowed VDI to provide the technology behind some of the most successful CRM applications of the last decade. Uniquely positioned to be more reactive to market trends and user needs VDI technology is now directed to the provision of custom Outlook integration.