Microsoft and Salesforce.com have just announced a strategic partnership. Salesforce.com is best known for it's customer relationship management (CRM) product and it's other products in cloud computing and social enterprise. The deal will see the CRM from salesforce.com connected with Microsoft Office and Windows to make customers more productive. A Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 app were also announced.
In fall 2014, we can look forward to a preview of a Salesforce1 for Windows and Windows Phone 8.1. General availability of the Salesforce1 is scheduled for 2015. Saleforce1 is a cloud application platform for companies to bring their apps to market quickly. Anything built on Salesforce can quickly be turned into an app for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.
We'll also see new interoperability between Salesforcea and Office 365. Customers will get access to content they need to collaborate, sell, service and market from anywhere. You can access, share, edit and collab on Office content within Salesforce and on Salesforce 1 using Office Mobile, Office for iPad and Office 365.
Anyone using Salesforce products at work today? What do you think of the new partnership? Sound off below.
Source: Microsoft
Reader comments
Microsoft and salesforce.com ink deal to bring CRM platform to Office, Windows
We use SalesForce over at Misys to log customer cases. Seems handy to get an app.
We at hp too use sales force
Yeah, been asking on every survey for an SF app, use my own 1520 with my HP SIM. Great we'll get Salesforce support, its essential really and the lack of it is probably why I've seen a lot of sales being given only Androids recently vs a fair few 920s last year
great news!
This is great news it's so hard to try to get anything done in sales force from the browser.
This is big! Microsoft is making bug inroads in the enterprise again with azure and they're other CRM systems. Once people start using their system in enterprise, it's likely they will try it at home
Finally! Hopefully offline mode feature will be reintroduced by SFDC Too.
Number of our larger clients use Salesforce and they've had number issues with Office 2013 intergration (not certain which areas personally) therefore they would be delighted to hear that there are apps coming out for it on Windows 8.1 as most of the their systems are now Windows 8.1.
Hope Swiftpage takes notes of this for ACT which they took over from Sage.
Reminds me of the quote for the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where in just about the ending before Bill Gates played by Michael Anthony Hall says "I am going to make them want us". He was referring to releasing Office on Mac if I recall correctly. This seems like a parallel that could be made with this deal and Windows Phone. Maybe not. Microsoft is now serving all platforms these days.
Ok interesting, good strategy
Do they have apps on android and iPhones?
There are a few different versions of Salesforce for iOS and from a support standpoint they are horrible in my opinion. My company uses Salesforce (poorly I admit because they have put so much junk in) as the be all end all; from sales to support cases. I can never review the case comments from iOS nor can I really work a case from the information provided to me from the iOS app.
I have high hopes that the Windows Phone app allows me to see more information about a case that I'm working on so that on the go I can provide better answers.
This will be HUGE for business and enterprise customers and really help entrench Microsoft in that market. I like this deal better than Apple buying Beats.
Huge. I hope it precedes an acquisition, or just a closer relationship, an incredibly smart one.
Not sure I agree... Platform notwithstanding. Microsoft is in a huge pitch battle between Dynamics CRM and Salesforce... Would much rather see investment in platforms there.. It really is a superior play in the enterprise
First things first, Salesforce: Make IE as compatible as the other browsers.
I'm a Salesforce Admin and also a Windows Phone user. I must say, when I converted over to WP, one of the first apps I searched for was Salesforce. Obviously, it was nowhere to be found on the WP Store. This was a speed bump but I decided to stick to WP anyhow in hopes that Salesforce would develop on WP. While at Dreamforce (Salesforce Conference) I asked around and didn't get enthusiasm from the panelist when I asked about a WP Salesforce app. I thought all hope was lost, UNTIL NOW.
Hopefully it's not a little cousin of the iOS/Android app with 1/2 the features and functionality. We want Salesforce1.
As a technical sales rep for Dynamics CRM.... meh. Salesforce integration with Office will always be behind Dynamics. It's a good deal to position Office as a ''customer first'' brand. This is in line with Satya vision of Cloud and Mobile first.
But don't get me wrong, I still think Dynamics CRM is better than Salesforce.com ;)
Great, I don't work in sales but my workgroup does use chatter a lot so an app for that will be fantastic
Dynamics CRM and Salesforce are too expensive and overkill for small businesses. Microsoft pushes Microsoft Business Contact Manager (BCM) to us, but there isn't a windows phone app or even any easy way to access our local files on the internet!
Any BCM users out there? How do you use it mobile?
I've had one customer of mine switch a year ago from a Lumia 800 phone to iPhone because of the lack of a Salesforce app, despite being satisfied with the Lumia phone.
I take this simply as SalesForce supporting the Microsoft mobile platforms as a result, but how does this compare to their Dynamics? It's great to have choices and competition is welcome to most of us (good to see Microsoft positioning itself further as mobile and cloud first), but my job unfortunately isn't using either of them at the moment... =[
Finally! I'm a Salesforce admin. I use WP.. But since they don't have salesforce1 yet for windows, had to use iPhone as my company phone
I love Dynamics. Needs to be cheaper though
Not a fan of Salesforce at all, but they are a HUGE. Hopefully this makes SF better.
Why is Microsoft so proud of this (i.e. supporting Salesforce) when they do not support their own CRM system (i.e. Dynamics, etc...) on Windows Phone. We are fully vested in MSFT (Windows, Office, Sharepoint, Lync, CRM, Navision, Windows Phone) and when announcements like this come out, it is hard to justify why. I really would appreciate anyone that can provide an answer.