The Best Is Yet To Come

It's a good week to be a Microsoft partner specializing in customer relationship management software. To be fair, every week is a good week in that respect. However, this week is a particularly good week. HP, Inc., the printer and PC division spun off from HP last year, announced on Monday that it would be moving the management of its sales processes to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. As HP, Inc. previously used Salesforce CRM software and Oracle service software, this represents a victory for Microsoft over two significant rivals. It is a six-year deal that covers thousands of platforms. In addition to the Dynamics CRM software, HP, Inc. will utilize Office365 products as well as Microsoft Azure as part of the deal.

             HP, Inc. was a prized customer at Salesforce, frequently featured in its conferences and sales literature. Industry analysts perceive this to be validation of Microsoft’s CRM market strategy for the past couple years. To remain competitive with Salesforce, Microsoft has been heavily investing in its Dynamics platform, making a number of strategic acquisitions. With Adxstudio, it attained web portal technology, backed by Azure for a cloud-based hosting solution, as well as field service capabilities with FieldOne, and customer service management from Parature. Last but nowhere near least, Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion, the largest company acquisition to date, will allow it to mine the reservoirs of data within resumes. This is projected to help human resources professionals manage the large number of temporary and contingent workers. LinkedIn is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendor with a large portion of its revenue stemming from software-related services. This acquisition will markedly increase Microsoft’s cloud and SaaS footprint.

             The promise of Microsoft’s latest acquisition probably had a large influence on the decision of HP, Inc. to move to Dynamics CRM. Their plan is to deeply integrate LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator with Dynamics CRM to help users find leads and achieve sales goals through the data leveraged from the social media giant. Microsoft’s product offerings combine CRM, social and business intelligence, productivity, and interoperability, all conveniently located in the cloud. This will dramatically increase Microsoft’s CRM market share in the next few years, something which will be reflected in upcoming Gartner studies. The best years are certainly yet to come for Microsoft Dynamics CRM vendors.