Dynamics CRM Online Will Become Office 365 Add-On

Dynamics CRM Online went live in January 2011, and per the company’s strategy for the new service, the first upgrade will be delivered by the end of this year.

A key aspect of Dynamics CRM Online’s evolution is the transition under Office 365, according to Kirill Tatarinov, President, Microsoft Business Solutions Division, who revealed the detail at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 last week.

Dynamics CRM Online is currently available to customers in some 40 markets worldwide as an alternative to the on-premises flavor of the company’s customer relationship management solution.

“We essentially transformed the way we build the product with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. We made the commitment that we will issue a service update twice a year. In January we made the service available, in Q4 we will issue an update. It is a very important, significant update for a number of reasons,” Tatarinov said.

“First, it makes CRM an add-on to Office 365. So, every single customer who signs up to use Office 365, and there will be millions of them out there, will have an option to add Dynamics CRM Online on the same bill, on the same provisioning engine.”

Essentially, Dynamics CRM Online will be joining such products as SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online, enhancing the company’s Cloud suite of productivity offerings.

Tatarinov stressed that with the transition under Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online will also mature and allow customers to take advantage of new features and capabilities.

“We're also making very significant enhancements, as many of you requested, in our enterprise capabilities, improving disaster recovery, improving federated identity, improving some security and privacy aspects of the tool,” he added.

“We're adding a wealth of social capabilities. People want to interact in different ways. The CRM enables those social capabilities, and we're adding those capabilities in a way that actually improves productivity. It is not useless chat that we're adding to the product. It's actually something that helps people be more productive.”

The promise from Microsoft is that Dynamics CRM Online’s evolution will also result in a service more focused on specific industries, enabling customers to benefit from an offering tailored by default to their set of needs.