Another user, Bernard McMahon, was more upbeat. McMahon is chairman of the U.K.-based venture capital and business services provider Just Good Business, which uses Microsoft's CRM software both internally and to assist clients. "I'm eagerly awaiting CRM 3.0," McMahon said in an e-mail. "The extended functionality, full Outlook integration, more powerful reporting and the campaign management tools will turn a good product into a great one. We'll be using the new version as soon as possible and I'm already recommending it to all the companies we work with and meet."

Darryl Nitke, CIO at Cosa Instruments Corp., also plans to move to 3.0 as soon possible. His Yaphank, N.Y.-based company distributes sensors, meters and industrial controls, and currently runs CRM 1.2.

Nitke said he isn't interested in the subscription licensing changes from Microsoft. "The hosted model wasn't that great for us," he said, noting that Cosa had moved from hosted CRM provider Salesforce.com Inc. to its current in-house installation. Salesforce.com's service lacked integration with Cosa's accounting and e-mail applications, he said, and had limited reporting and customization capabilities.

Liz Herbert, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc., said CRM 3.0 includes significant enhancements, including new or improved marketing and customer service capabilities, along with the ability to create role-based user interfaces.