Microsoft and Salesforce announced Thursday the two companies would fuse Microsoft Office with Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM) apps to help make Microsoft Windows and Windows phone products more user-friendly.
“Today is about putting the customer first,†Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a press release. “Together with Microsoft, we are building bridges that allow customers to be more productive.â€
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Some of the partnership’s ensuing features include the ability to access and manipulate content on Salesforce through Windows, a Salesforce app for Microsoft Outlook and the ability to conduct business through Salesforce on Windows phones.
Historically, the two companies have been at odds with one another. The CRM collaboration comes four years after the Redmond, Washington juggernaut and its smaller rival sued each other over CRM patent infringement. Even before then, Microsoft and Salesforce were competing in their CRM development. The latter was once rumored to be in talks with Google about a union against Microsoft.
However, the new partnership could bode well for both companies, as well as cloud-computing users.
“We are excited to partner with salesforce.com and help customers thrive in a mobile and cloud-first world,†Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said in a press release. “Working together we’ll deliver new solutions that connect the customer insights of Salesforce to the cloud productivity of Office 365, the cloud platform of Azure and the mobility of Windows, so our customers can do more.â€
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