CRM Prices Drop for Hosters

Partners using Dynamics CRM as a platform for building hosted services get support for multitenancy and a price cut with the release of CRM 4.0, which shipped in Dec. 2007. Dynamics CRM is a server-based customer relationship management (CRM) application that uses Outlook or a Web browser as the client. The new feature and price cut will reduce hosting partners’ operating costs, critical for those partners as Microsoft enters the market in 2008 with its own CRM Live hosted service. Although CRM Live is primarily aimed at slowing Salesforce.com’s growth, it will also challenge Microsoft’s CRM hosting partners.

Key Feature, Price Drop for Hosters

Although most Dynamics CRM customers run it in-house, several partners, including Navisite and CRM OnTarget, offer hosted services built on the product.

Among other enhancements, CRM 4.0 introduces support for multitenancy, which allows a single CRM installation to host multiple, distinct organizations. Multitenancy should make the product more practical for service providers to offer hosted CRM to small customers.