Third Party Product.

• Pros: The cost is normally controllable, because product is already developed and ready to be implemented. Plus it is possible to get references on the reliability of the product from all the kinds of user groups, product reviews, etc. Also – sometimes it is referred as weakness but it might be considered as the plus – if product is developed and supported by the known vendor – you should believe that it will be upgraded and available for future MS CRM releases.

• Contras. The first minus we would like to mention is usually not described in the textbooks – this is the problem when, say product A is purchased by Microsoft itself and inaugurated as from now on ‘official’ solutions, and if you historically selected product B – coming from the competitor – you are in a problem – you will see you software vendor to be weakened and slowly phasing out alternative product B
Unique Customization.

• Pros. You will have so-called source code, if you negotiate it right with the custom developer or custom development company – then you can transfer version upgrade or product modification to the market leader (who will be giving you better price and quality assurance in the future). Other pluses might be cost saving, due to the fact that you are paying for required functionality only, not for something you will never use.

• Contras. Cost might be crossing the budgeted line, because you might not be able to select reliable software developer (all of them might be in the learning curve, because MS CRM is relatively young product) – this is very strong argument, when you have just purchased the CRM and yet not know the players on the customization market.
Production Environment Challenges. When you are already in production – be sure that MS CRM needs testing, if you introduce custom logic. You should try to isolate custom logic, and test it in the isolated space – again MS CRM doesn’t have parallel test company environment – opposite to what you have in ERP system, such as Great Plains/Dynamics GP.

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( www.albaspectrum.com www.greatplains.com.mx ) – Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

If you do not want to purchase a manual for your program there are many free tutorials on the Internet where you can find the useful information to start working with your program.

This along with free instructions and pieces of advice should be enough for you to register a great success with your program.If you believe that the price of the software with academic discount is suitable for you, you may contact your institution’s library or any other source which deals with them in your school or faculty. You can also find them along with the discount on some Internet websites.

A frequently asked question is whether the academic software can be used in commercial purposes or not.Well, this is relative and totally dependent on what it is mentioned in the license Agreement for that particular program. Generally you are permitted to do so but some companies do not allow you to use the program in commercial purposes.

If you are a student, teacher or educational institution and you want to save a lot of money on software, just visit http://www.sprysoft.com for academic software and student software discounts.

A quick check of the CompUSA.com website shows Microsoft Office Standard costs $399 and Microsoft Office Professional will set you back $449. Now, this doesn’t discount the value of the software.

In fact, the functionality in MS Office represents the true workhorse of home and small business computing, namely: word processing (Word), spreadsheets (Excel), presentations (PowerPoint), and desktop database applications (Access).

However, with the cost for such functionality at a premium, it comes as no surprise that a viable alternative emerged to challenge Microsoft’s position atop the office application market.

OpenOffice.org offers a suite of office software applications free to download for anyone with a computer, including PC’s operating with Windows or Linux.

Open Office also offers a free version for Macintosh computers.

Open Office offers its software freely to anyone who wants to download it.

Their all-volunteer organization, sponsored in large part by Sun Microsystems, operates with the noble goal of making productivity software available worldwide in 36 languages, particularly to economies that simply can’t afford the cost of other office solutions.

The Open Office software publishes in the Open Document Format to make data universally available (instead of using proprietary file formats that, for instance, make it hard to share between Microsoft Word and Word Perfect).

Open Office contains several main components, each of which help the user with specific tasks.

Writer – This software offers a full-featured word-processing program enabling the user to type letters, brochures, faxes, even entire books. No matter what you need to type, this program lets you do it. It also offers such features as spell check, auto-correction, and thesaurus.

Calc – Calc offers a spreadsheet program enabling the user to create cells containing text or digits, execute simple and complex calculations, database functions, and more. Calc is perfect for accounting spreadsheets, inventory and more.

Impress – Impress enables the user to create “slideshow” presentations containing text and images for use in sales or group presentations. Impress also allows the user to create impressive slide transition effects and eye-catching animation.

Draw – Draw gives the user the ability to create simple to complex drawings using vector graphics. Users can create drawings by hand, or incorporate an array of existing shapes, arrows, lines and other graphics.

Though it does represent an excellent alternative to expensive office software suites, Open Office is not without a few drawbacks.

Since they make the software available free of charge, tech support for the free version only lasts 30 days. Also, by its nature, the software is a “work in progress.”

As such, you will find bugs periodically that should get reported to the Open Office website so they can fix them.

However, despite these drawbacks, Open Office software rates a “must look” if you need word processing, spreadsheets and other capabilities we’ve naturally come to associate with home and small business computing.

Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards

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