Hello Gregor,
First off, I hope that your search across CRM vendors includes Microsoft
Dynamics CRM, which has taken the CRM market by storm this past year.
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/default.mspx
The platform technologies that you list are common technologies in the
Microsoft platform. By far, the best way to have someone explain the
distinctions of these different bits is to give a call to your local
Microsoft regional office. There are helpful folks there, including Systems
Engineers, who can help you to understand the role that these technologies
play.
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/request_more_info.mspx
I'll do my best to help. Please understand that I am not speaking on behalf
of Microsoft in this forum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client-server
Client server is an application architecture used in many CRM packages.
This model means that a software program is installed on the desktop
computer. That program provides a "rich experience" because it can react to
each keystroke that the user types. You can look up a company, for example,
by typing two or three letters of the company's name. This type of
interaction is also available in some newer web-based applications, but very
few, and mostly not in the CRM space.
The advantage of Client Server is that you have a program that controls your
entire experience. The disadvantage is usually the cost of keeping a client
program up to date. If you expect to upgrade your client server application
many, many times, then you need for your CRM solution to come built in with
the ability to automatically update the client application when the version
changes.
There are two common programming "platforms" that modern software developers
use to write code. At its heart, a platform is a rather large chunk of
software that was written by a vendor to provide a lot of common bits of
code that programmers can use. The less code that a programmer has to
write, the less expensive it is to write the application, and the more
reliable that it is. The two most common platforms are Java and Microsoft
..Net. The .Net platform provides tools, languages, common libraries, and
system components for communications, graphical display, web pages, and many
other things.
The key thing to realize is that your company may also want to write
software. If you do, you may want to pick a platform that your internal
software developers can use. There are lots of reasons for choosing one
platform or another, too many to describe here. Thousands of software
packages exist on each platform, and there are some very good ways to make
programs on one platform "speak" with programs on another. I hope that this
link helps.
http://www.microsoft.com/net/default.mspx
ASP is an acronym for Active Server Pages. This technology has largely been
replaced with ASP.NET, which is the .Net platform version of Active Server
Pages. This is a Microsoft technology used to create web applications. The
ASP technology competes with ColdFusion, Perl, and Java Server Pages. You
can find more information at:
http://www.asp.net/default.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=1 although the information
will be fairly technical. This is a development tool more than anything
else. It is high performance, reliable, and quite scalable. That means
that a developer can write web applications using this technology and it can
be used to run very high performance web sites (like Microsoft.Com itself,
which is one of the most heavily trafficed web sites on the planet).
I had not heard of this particular technology. When I asked Search.MSN.Com
about it, I got a link to a CRM vendor named SalesManager.
http://www.salesmanager.nl/uk/uk_products_development_objectives.htm I
imagine that this is where you got this term.
The only thing I would be worried about with a proprietary RAD framework
like this one is that you are relying on one vendor for both their CRM
solution and the programming platform.
While they may make a good CRM package (or not... I have no idea), it would
be unusual for a company that doesn't specialize in software development
tools to make a good programming framework. There are very few companies
that have managed to make good programming frameworks. Microsoft, SUN, IBM,
and Borland come to mind. I really wouldn't rely on anything less.
Ask the company if there is a way to program against their package using
either .Net or Java, and if there is, stick to these larger and better known
platforms. It will be easier to find developers, easier to get help, and
you can be sure that the company has invested heavily in TESTING to make
sure that the platform itself doesn't have bugs in it. I cannot stress this
enough. You will need to customize your CRM implementation. Make sure that
your attempts at customization aren't thwarted by bugs in the programming
environment itself.
If we understand correctly, any architecture that uses DCOM is
client/server
and .NET = web services.
Distributed Component Object Model is a technology that provides many
benefits to the application-server environment as presented by various
Microsoft Server platform systems, including Windows Server 2000 and Windows
Server 2003. Client applications did not directly use DCOM. Server
applications can use each other using DCOM. That said, it would be fair to
say that the majority of commercial apps using DCOM are client/server
architecture.
..Net is an entire platform as I stated above. A very small part of .Net is
the ability to provide SOAP web services. However, developers using the
Microsoft platform are able to provide web services without using the .Net
platform. SOAP is an international standard. Microsoft makes it simple to
write applications that use it. The fact that a vendor uses .Net does not
mean that they have developed web services. If you plan to use web services
to communicate between your CRM app and another system, make sure that the
vendor actually created the web services, and get info from people who have
used these web services (from other customers) to make sure that they like
the implementation. As always, "the devil is in the details."
How does ASP and the SMS RAD Framework fit into all this?
See my previous answers on ASP and SMS RAD.
Please also consider Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. It is absolutely worth the
time it takes to look into it. I am a Microsoft employee, so you can credit
me with some bias. However, I'm also fairly critical of some Microsoft apps
(as others on this board have noticed). Prior versions of Dynamics CRM were
OK, and held their own in the marketplace. However, the current version,
which is aimed directly and small-to-medium sized companies, is truly
excellent. There are local events throughout the world where you can find
out more, or you can have an online chat with folks from the Dynamics team
itself. This is not an expensive product. Take a look.
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/default.mspx
Any insight, web links, etc are appreciated.
I hope this helps, Good Luck.
--
--- Nick Malik [Microsoft]
Enterprise Architect
MCSD, CFPS, Certified Scrummaster
http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this forum are my own, and not
representative of my employer.
I do not answer questions on behalf of my employer. I'm just a
programmer helping programmers.
--
