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HP Picks Microsoft over Salesforce, Oracle for CRM

Microsoft scored a major win against its CRM competitors on Monday, with the news that HP Inc. will switch thousands of its employees to Dynamics CRM Online.

HP -- which inherited Hewlett-Packard Co.'s PC and printer business after the company split last year -- has signed a six-year contract to deploy Dynamics CRM Online across its sales, service and marketing units, according to Microsoft's announcement. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed

"We have chosen Microsoft Dynamics as our CRM solution for our direct selling, partners and services," said HP COO Jon Flaxman in a statement. "This brings us a cloud-based solution that delivers a more effective and efficient collaboration engine across our business."

Previously, HP had used software from Salesforce.com and Oracle for its sales and customer service processes, according to a report by Fortune, which said that HP plans to deploy Dynamics CRM Online on a total of 28,500 seats. Roughly 20,000 of those will be support employees, with the rest being sales.

Microsoft is touting the move as an end-to-end benefit for HP, given Dynamics CRM Online's tight integration with Azure and other Microsoft productivity and analytics tools -- namely, Office 365 and Power BI.

The HP contract is a boon for Microsoft, which trails Salesforce.com, SAP and Oracle in worldwide CRM market share, according to Gartner.

Microsoft has invested significantly in Dynamics CRM in recent years, acquiring companies like FieldOne and Adxstudio to bolster Dynamics CRM's capabilities. Its $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn also promises to benefit Dynamics CRM sales users by giving them access to a vast amount of customer and business data.

In its most recent financial quarter, Microsoft reported a 6 percent increase in Dynamics revenue, which it attributed largely to Dynamics CRM Online paid seats more than doubling year over year.

About the Author

Gladys Rama (@GladysRama3) is the editorial director of Converge360.

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