MS Dynamics Gets SaaS and Ribbon Capabilities

March 20, 2007: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been talking up the company’s upcoming Dynamics CRM and ERP release, promising greater crossover from Office 2007 and web-based services.

Speaking at last week’s Microsoft Convergence conference in the US, Ballmer said that Dynamics will be brought under Microsoft’s Live with new software-as-a-service (SaaS) capabilities and the addition of the “Ribbon” interface seen in Office 2007.

Next to enabling greater integration and customisation between Office 2007 applications and Dynamics, Ballmer said that 60 tailored interfaces will be included to match features with users.

The move brings the company into heavy competition with the likes of SAP and Oracle who both offer hybrid PC-based and SaaS services, and Salesforce.com which is SaaS only.

Codenamed ‘Titan’, the next release of Dynamics CRD is scheduled for Q4 this year, slipping slightly from the “middle of 2007” release mentioned last month.

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