Microsoft Just Showed Off Exactly What Salesforce Was Worried About (cnbc.com)

Microsoft just took a direct swipe at Salesforce with a new enterprise-ready version of LinkedIn's customer relationship management product called Sales Navigator. From a report on CNBC: "Today's announcements take Sales Navigator to the next level," Doug Camplejohn, LinkedIn sales solutions head of product, said in a blog. The new product steps up competition with arch rival Salesforce. Microsoft beat out Salesforce to acquire Linkedin for $26.2 billion -- by far the company's largest acquisition to date -- in June. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was so concerned, he accused the company of "anti-competitive behavior" and urged regulators to investigate. Flash-forward less than a year and Microsoft's new Sales Navigator Enterprise Edition incorporates many features aimed at turning LinkedIn into a must-have tool for sales teams at big companies.

Comments

Alternative competitiveness

[bruce_the_loon]

Oh boo-hoo Salesforce, MS has had a CRM for decades, just not a particularly good one. Now it has a somewhat better one, all of a sudden you can't compete in an open market with what you've got? Build a better one then.

And while you're at it, can anyone build a CRM that doesn't require signing off souls to all three Hells to make it work? I've only got one and Satan, Cthulhu and Kali all require exclusive rights to it.

Re:Alternative competitiveness

[Kjella]

And while you're at it, can anyone build a CRM that doesn't require signing off souls to all three Hells to make it work? I've only got one and Satan, Cthulhu and Kali all require exclusive rights to it.

Don't worry, my CRM only requires you sign over your soul once*.

* May contain an irrevokable clause to sublicense your soul.

Re:Alternative competitiveness

[Richard_at_work]

I'm interested in what SalesForce was going to use LinkedIn for, if not precisely this - they are basically whining about someone else doing what they intended to do, while trying to push it as some sort of abuse of monopoly (where exactly is the monopoly here?)