CRM 2011 Update Rollup 9 coming soon.

1. CRM Anywhere

Access Microsoft Dynamics CRM anywhere, from PC, Mac, and even smart phones.
For PC on computer running Windows 7 / Vista / XP; you can access it using IE 7+, Firefox 6+ or Chrome 13+.
For Mac and iPad 2 you can access CRM is by using Safari 5.1.1+.

The support for smart phones is such as the following. It supports Windows Phone (OS 7.5+), Apple iPhone 3GS+ (iOS 5+), Android (OS 2.2+) and Blackberry (6.x and 7.x).

Access CRM 2011 via Firefox thanks to Update Rollup 9

2. Rapid View forms

Rapid view forms are usually used by a group of users who use CRM to look up information with no immediate need to apply modifications. Rapid View forms hides the ribbon button and the form will open in view mode with two menu bar buttons for Close and Edit record.


3. Enhanced Social

The Activity feeds gained the 'Like' and 'Unlike' feature.
Like in Facebook you can like or unlike posts .


The @me filter new feature allows you to see all posts that mention you.


4. Industry Solution Templates

Microsoft delivers a range of templates that demonstrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM's suitability and flexibility for a different industries such as Health Plan Sales and Wealth Management, Non-Profit, Insurance Sales. These industry solution templates are going to be published on the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace but Microsoft will not be officially supporting the industry solution templates.


5. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Support

When Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is fully RTM-ed, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will be ready to take full advantage of all the performance benefits and new features offered by SQL Server 2012.

Some of the awesome features from SQL Server 2012:
- Significantly boost query performance by up to ~100 times for star join and similar queries.
- Support blazing fast queries with dramatic improvement for Full Text Search
- High scale with support for up to 256 cores!


6. Business Intelligence Insights with Power View

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 introduces a new Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 called Power View, previously code-named Project Crescent. Power View is a next-generation BI tool for interactive data exploration, visualization, and presentation. It provides intuitive ad-hoc reporting for business users such as data analysts, business decision makers and information workers. In short, Power View provides better business insights and collaboration for casual and experienced users alike. Power View allows a user to configure reports that connect to Microsoft Excel’s PowerPivot or SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

Power View Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Release Preview Guide, Q2 2012 is so much more than just breathtaking end user analytics visualizations and tools, it redefines the data analysis process for business and technical users alike.


7. Portal Framework Enhancements

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Q2 service update includes enhancements to the portal framework that powers customer and partner portals connecting to Microsoft Dynamics CRM (both online and on-premises). These portals can be run in your data center or in Windows Azure. The Q2 2012 service update includes the ability for portals to use Microsoft Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) for authentication. This empowers organizations to setup various standards-based identity providers such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Windows Live ID and ADFS 2.0 for portals that require authenticated sign-on security.


8. Custom Workflow Activities in CRM Online

his awesome feature really close off the gaps between CRM On-Premise and CRM Online. You can create the custom workflow activities using C# and deploy the assembly to CRM Online as you would in On-Premise.


Source: Microsoft Technet