News

Microsoft Buys Adxstudio's 'Portals' Business To Bolster Dynamics CRM

• By Gladys Rama
• September 28, 2015

Microsoft on Monday announced its acquisition of "key product and technology assets" owned by longtime Dynamics partner Adxstudio.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, Microsoft will transition "key product engineers and technical staff" from Adxstudio into its Dynamics CRM team led by Corporate Vice President Bob Stutz, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.

Founded in 1998, Canada-based Adxstudio has gold-level Microsoft competencies for customer relationship management and application development, and has won multiple Partner of the Year awards from Microsoft.

The company's flagship product, Adxstudio Portals, enables businesses to build customer-facing Web sites that integrate directly with their Dynamics CRM account. For instance, customers can log in to a Web site built on Adxstudio and be automatically assigned a Dynamics CRM contact. In turn, businesses can share Dynamics CRM information with customers, with the ability to customize accessibility using permissions. Adxstudio Portals also provides templated Web site apps, including blogs, forums and technical-support forms, as well as partner-management and e-commerce portals.

Besides Dynamics CRM, Adxstudio Portals also integrates with Azure, SharePoint and Parature, a cloud-based customer-management solution that Microsoft acquired early last year.

Adxstudio also offers an ALM Toolkit for Dynamics CRM.

In a blog post announcing the deal, Stutz said the acquired technologies "will be available for all Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and can be used both on-premises and in the cloud."

A Microsoft spokesperson clarified that the acquisition is not for the full Adxstudio business, which includes consulting services. "We are acquiring the product and technology organizations of Adxstudio. Their Professional Services organization will remain an independent entity and continue serving customers with Web engagement implementation and integration services," the spokesperson said in an e-mail.

Adxstudio is the latest in a string of acquisitions by Microsoft aimed at bolstering its Dynamics CRM business. In March, Microsoft acquired technology from U.K.-based Fusion Software aimed at customer management. That was followed by the June acquisition of New Jersey-based FieldOne Systems, which provides tools for field service workers. And in early August, Microsoft purchased a sales-focused gamification platform from Texas-based Incent Games.