Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) has announced that the enhanced functionality it plans to release over the next two years will help firms achieve a higher return on investment from their existing Microsoft systems.

But concerns are mounting that while close integration between new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other Microsoft products will bring many benefits, it could also lock in customers.

Microsoft announced earlier this month that its Project Green initiative to move all its ERP systems onto one code base will introduce new technology on a piecemeal basis.

Four new areas of functionality - an enhanced user interface, a dot-Net-based interoperability layer, improved business intelligence capabilities and closer integration with SharePoint portal technology - will be added to MBS products, enabling each of them to integrate more closely with other Microsoft products. "The new innovations are all about integrating ERP products with the Microsoft products many companies already have, like Exchange, Outlook, SQL and SQL Reporting Services," said Jon Hughes, head of the MBS partner group in the UK. "This will really help them get a return on the investment they've made in infrastructure."

For example, companies that use systems with Windows 2000 or later can now deploy Microsoft customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities relatively easily. "It means the cost of implementing is lower as you've already done the heavy lifting of getting the infrastructure," said Hughes.

The strategy has already paid off in the US where credit association GreenStone Farm Credit Services last year installed MBS CRM and at the same time decided to replace its Novell file and directory servers with Microsoft ones.

To get optimum performance out of new Microsoft products, firms will increasingly need the latest versions of Microsoft software, analysts said. "Microsoft is not saying you cannot run its applications without the latest versions of the infrastructure," said Dale Vile of analyst firm Quocirca. "But to get the most out of them you should [use them]."

Vile said this is good news for companies that are comfortable being "wall-to-wall Microsoft", but could be a problem for more conservative organisations wary of "perpetual upgrade cycles". Microsoft countered that it is not forcing people to upgrade.

Brad Wilson, managing director of Microsoft CRM, said web services capabilities in MBS applications mean it is becoming simpler to develop interconnectivity with other software stacks if required.