Microsoft Announces General Availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

New online service redefines customer relationship management with on-demand CRM that is fast, flexible, familiar and affordable.


REDMOND, Wash. — April 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, an on-demand customer relationship management service hosted and managed by Microsoft. The new Internet service delivers a full suite of marketing, sales and service capabilities through a Web browser or directly into Microsoft Office and Outlook.

It provides “instant-on” access to businesses that want a full-featured CRM solution with no IT infrastructure investment or setup required. Businesses can learn more about Microsoft’s strategy for delivering next-generation CRM solutions from a new webcast being launched today at http://crmchoice.com, featuring Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Martha Rogers from the Peppers and Rogers Group.

“At Microsoft, we’re revolutionizing how companies deploy marketing, sales and service solutions to users within their organization,” said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM at Microsoft. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM delivers the power of choice to customers, with a familiar and productive user experience and a multitenant platform that enables fast on-premise implementations or ‘instant-on’ deployments over the Internet.”

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online reinforces Microsoft’s broad software plus services strategy for delivering integrated business solutions over the Internet, and it is a part of Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investment in global datacenters. In addition to full access through a zero-footprint browser client, the new service delivers marketing, sales and service information within a native Microsoft Office experience, integrated with the desktop tools that employees already use every day, enabling businesses to ramp up end-user adoption and productivity rapidly.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is initially packaged in two service offerings:
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Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Professional delivers a full suite of CRM capabilities with extensive configurability and extensibility options. Businesses get 5 GB of data storage, 100 configurable workflows and 100 custom entities. The Professional edition is priced at $44 per user per month, with an introductory offer of $39 per user, per month.
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Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Professional Plus delivers all the capabilities of the Professional version plus offline data synchronization with expanded data storage, workflow and customization options that give businesses 20 GB of data storage, 200 configurable workflows and 200 custom entities. The Professional Plus edition is priced at $59 per user per month.

More than 500 customers and 200 partners have used Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online over the past six months via the Microsoft Early Access Program.

“In today’s fast-changing business environment, we needed a system that our people could easily pick up and start effectively managing our customer relationships with,” said Lori McIntosh, founder and managing partner of Lure Executive Services. “We tried Salesforce.com but it was just too hard to adapt it to our business. Microsoft’s new on-demand service is fast to deploy and highly cost-effective with winning business benefits and, because it’s highly configurable, a far better fit for our rapidly evolving needs.”

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online delivers more capabilities at a better price than competing on-demand products, driving higher business productivity while reducing risk and total cost of ownership. For example, based on publicly available information from Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Professional Edition gives businesses the following:
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5 GB of storage versus 1 GB in Salesforce.com Professional Edition
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100 workflows versus none in Salesforce.com Professional Edition
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100 configurable entities versus 50 in Salesforce.com Professional Edition
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Significant cost savings and a dramatically lower total cost of ownership at $44 per user, per month versus $65 per user per month or more for Salesforce.com Professional Edition.

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online presents partners with a great opportunity to reach broad new market segments,” said Ryan Toenies, vice president of CRM at Inetium LLC. “The product is functionally impressive and truly demonstrates the investment Microsoft has made in the on-demand space. We are very excited to be working closely with Microsoft to deliver powerful solutions that solve real customer needs.”

Availability

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is available in English in the United States and Canada. International rollout beyond the United States and Canada has not been announced, but Microsoft partners today offer hosted versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM in many countries around the world.