Microsoft does have a habit of preannouncing products. But the fact that it headlined Dynamics CRM 2011 as being introduced this week says a lot about the obvious emphasis on CRM. The next edition is being released to beta in September. As outlined by Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of the Office Business Platform Group, Dynamics CRM gets a ribbon so it works “Just like the Office experience does.”  He also referred to charts and graphs inside of CRM as being “a little like Performance Point Services …” Read more...

Whether or not the CFO of the Windows division would be expected to keynote the Worldwide Partner Conference is something I’m not sure of. But for Great Plains alums, it’s worthwhile noting that Tami Reller, once key sidekick to Doug Burgum, got a spot on the big stage. It certainly demonstrates that Reller remains in good stead at Microsoft. I keep getting back to the issue of the magazine, Red Herring, a few years ago, that featured what it called mini-Bills, the potential successors to founder Bill Gates when he was still active in the company. Reller was the only female among the group. Looks like she still has a shot of heading higher. Read more...

Few technologies immediately impress me, but while tooling around the Louvre last month, I kept seeing monitors on cameras, largely those held by Japanese tourists, that displayed photos that had spectacular colors that were produced under very dim lighting conditions. A quick check with Randy Johnston of K2 Enterprises brought the info that the monitors were probably using OLCD  (organic LCD) technology. Unfortunately, the high-quality images are available only on the monitors, not yet in the photo output. Read more...

Tampa, Fla.-based Tribridge has been named as Microsoft Dynamics Outstanding Reseller of the Year. The award was made during this week's Worldwide Partner Conference, at which members of the Inner Circle and President’s Club were also revealed. The Inner Circle looks more than ever like a list of larger resellers: Tectura, Columbus IT, ePartners, Tribridge, Hitachi Consulting, Fullscope were all on the list. Among the smallest are Ibis and InterDyn AKA. Read more...