By Sharla Sikes

Microsoft has been a household name for a while now. It makes sense, of course, that it would position itself as a major player in the Customer Relationship Management field as it has in home and business computing, and elsewhere (too many markets to list!).

So, Microsoft’s entry into the CRM world includes its Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, an on-demand customer relationship management service hosted and managed by Microsoft. It bills the services as a “full suite of marketing, sales and service capabilities through a Web browser or directly into Microsoft Office and Outlook.”

CRM Online provides its users with “instant-on” access for companies seeking a CRM solution without the IT staff and infrastructure. To help spread the word of its CRM solution, Microsoft presents CRM Choice, 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’s CRM entry features two packages, according to its web site:

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.

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.

Microsoft says that more than 500 customers and 200 partners have checked out Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online using the Early Access Program over the last half year.

“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 bills its CRM product to deliver full CRM capability at a lower price point to drive “higher business productivity while reducing risk and total cost of ownership,” according to a news release. “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.”

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