title: Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a software development platform?
body: <p>My organisation is in the final stages of acquiring CRM 4.0 for use as a general purpose software development platform. The company who is selling it to us has convinced upper management that CRM will solve all our productivity problems and make software development as easy as point and click. (They don't read Brooks.)</p>
  
  <p>Having resigned to the fact that I can't stop CRM from being foisted upon us developers, I have been doing research on how to manage the complexities of large scale CRM development.</p>
  
  <p>I have so far identified the following complexities that need to be addressed:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>CRM seems wholly incompatible with basic configuration management practices.</li>
  <li>Keeping the black box CRM database in bidirectional synchronisation with external LOB systems is both very hard and critical to project success.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>What other complexities must I take into account when building a large scale CRM application?</p>
  
  <p>What limitations does CRM have as a development platform? </p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit:</strong> This <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/190839/">topic</a> provided additional insight.</p>