Wilson intends to upgrade to Microsoft CRM 3.0, most likely this fall, Kretchman said.

Helene Cole, CEO of Altara, an integrator in Basking Ridge, N.J., said her company replaced its Siebel software with the Microsoft offering in 2002.

Cole said the Siebel implementation worked well for large customers of its integration services but proved too complex and costly for internal use.

The Quiznos Master LLC, which sells sandwich-shop franchises, replaced a homegrown CRM application with Microsoft's CRM 1.2 offering in February 2005, said Kristie Reid, IT project manager for the company's Quiznos Subs unit. Quiznos now has 550 users of Microsoft's CRM software and will upgrade to Version 3.0 in the next couple of months, she said.

Reid said Denver-based Quiznos uses Dynamics CRM for consolidated reporting. The former CRM system required several different applications to create reports, she added.