Microsoft commits to enterprise, CRM, SaaS

After a long long story of talk s about acquisition of YAHOO! , Finally Steve Ballmer has something else to talk about.

In the company's convergence conference it was said that Microsoft is planning to expand into the business application business.Microsoft is already the leading supplier of enterprise software in total dollar volume.

The partnership with the giant EDS ,who is incorporating Microsoft's dynamic CRM  in its key offering of global CRM practice.

CRM is seen as an market that can be targeted in the enterprise.The Microsoft's Dynamic CRM 4.0 's release has shown a positive sign with more than 500 customers beta-testing the SaaS application.

 ITS MICROSOFT!!!

Microsoft has always been ahead of its competitors in terms of innovation. While oracle and other vendors are in the astage of integrating the CRM and back office functions in one platform, Microsoft has gone one step ahead in integrating hte CRM functions with ERP, which is indeed a very good move.

Microsoft is also committing to multiple deployment models: on-premise, partner-hosted and hosted by Microsoft in the SaaS model. That goes for future iterations of ERP as well.

"We need one technology platform and a consistent set of applications that move in this direction, and we're absolutely committed to move in that direction with all our 200 partners hosting Dynamics solutions in the cloud," Ballmer said.

Microsoft is also offering a series of online services that extend existing CRM and ERP applications to the Web. The initial offering includes a fraud-prevention service from PayPal and Chase Paymentech; a marketplace service that integrates with eBay, allowing customers to sell through the popular online marketplace, as well as through their own online stores; and a keyword marketing service that includes campaign management and tracking for search-engine campaigns.