CRM Online Service Updated

An update to CRM Online, a Microsoft-hosted customer relationship management (CRM) service that opened for business in Apr. 2008, adds features for creating, managing, and tracking the success of Internet-based marketing campaigns. The update rounds out the service’s marketing features, adding capabilities common to other hosted CRM solutions, including Microsoft’s main rival in the space, Salesforce.com. However, the new features are available only to subscribers in the United States initially.

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CRM Online is based on Dynamics CRM 4.0, which shipped late in 2007. The service offers substantially the same set of features as Dynamics CRM 4.0—it provides Web-based features for managing customer-related activities, such as logging and tracking incidents; marketing and advertising activities; and sales processes, such as tracking quotes, orders, and invoices. CRM Online competes with similar services offered by Microsoft partners, such as Navisite, and competitors such as Salesforce.com, the leading vendor of hosted CRM.