by Dann Anthony Maurno, Assistant Editor
Resco, the Slovak provider of the Resco Mobile CRM client for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has announced it will acquire CWR Mobility‘s mobile CRM assets.
The acquisition merges the first and second most significant mobile client ISVs for Dynamics CRM, leaving one de facto provider besides Microsoft. Resco COO Ivan Stano has no doubts about which company was first and which was second: “I believe the acquisition makes super clear who the market leader is and also about our position within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM ecosystem. We’re now absolute market leader and what’s more important on a truly global scale.”
Resco will take ownership of the entire CWR mobile CRM portfolio including its technology, customers (with reportedly 11,000 users), partner activities and responsibilities. Once the acquisition is finalized, Resco’s customer base will climb to over 1,500 businesses and close to almost 70,000 mobile users, says the company. “That’s a fantastic pool of innovative companies that understand how mobile technologies add value to their business and make the people’s job easy,” says Stano.
CWR Mobility’s team will transform to an IT services company and will continue to operate as an independent company. Their primary focus will be the implementation of mobile technologies, and says Stano “I see them as a vital Resco partner in the future, especially given their experience, know-how and skills.”
The end of a “healthy competition”: one mobile CRM offering or two?
In its statement on the acquisition, Resco described an atmosphere of “healthy competition” with CWR Mobility, calling it “the company we looked up to” in mobile CRM.
“Three to five years ago, Resco was rather an underdog in the mobile CRM space within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM ecosystem,” says Stano. “I remember CWR was very close to forming the official cooperation with Microsoft at one time, which kept us wondering about the future.”
Stano is referring to the 2012 plan between CWR Mobility and Microsoft that made CWR Mobility a development partner for Dynamics CRM and would have made the mobile app vendor’s platform the de facto solution for advanced mobile needs alongside Dynamics CRM. But the plan faced delays later in 2012 amid a range of problems with the Q2 2012 Service Update. Ultimately, the companies never brought a solution to market together and Microsoft shifted direction to begin developing their own mobile apps for Dynamics CRM.
Resco continued to invest heavily in its own technology, and says Stano the acquisition “will for once and for all clarify what the best mobile CRM for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is – Resco Mobile CRM.”
Asked how the companies will harmonize their offerings, Stano said that “CWR’s and Resco’s products might look quite similar at least on the first sight. Technologically, the products are very different though. Frankly, our long-term plan is to consolidate the mobile offering from a marketing angle and provide one Mobile CRM solution fully based on the leading Resco technology.” He adds that CWR customers may rest assured that Resco will support CWR Mobile CRM for at least a year.
Beyond the Microsoft ecosphere
Stano believes the acquisition enables the company to target other CRM giants.
“Our ambitions go beyond the Microsoft Dynamics CRM world now,” he says. “Based on our unprecedented position in Dynamics, we are actively approaching the remaining top three CRM providers (Oracle, Salesforce, SAP). We see Resco as a complete mobile strategy for businesses no matter what their back-end systems are. This is our top priority after the take-over.”
CWR Mobility B.V., located in Nijmegen, has provided mobile business solutions for over a decade. Their flagship CWR mobile CRM is the company’s best-known product, which makes the content of Microsoft Dynamics CRM available on the go for salespeople, field engineers and anyone in need of enterprise mobility.