Microsoft Offers Free SaaS To Salesforce, Oracle Customers

The offer for six free months of Dynamics CRM Online came a day after Microsoft dropped prices for cloud versions of Exchange and SharePoint.

Microsoft, which has increased its focus on cloud computing in recent weeks, is now making a big push for its customer-relationship management software-as-a-service. Microsoft announced Tuesday that it’s offering six months of free service to customers that switch from Salesforce.com or Oracle CRM On Demand to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

At the same time, Microsoft eliminated the two-tier pricing and feature structure of Dynamics CRM Online. When it introduced the SaaS in April 2008, it offered a base version with 5 GB of storage for $44 per user per month, and a more feature-rich version with 20 GB of storage for $59 a month. Now it just offers a single version, for $44 a month and 5 GB of storage, which includes 200 custom entities and 200 workflows.

By comparison, Salesforce.com offers a professional version of CRM for $65 a month, and an enterprise version (its most popular) for $125 a month. Oracle CRM On Demand starts at $70 a month.

CRM continues to be the strongest and most attractive area for SaaS. The worldwide market for CRM was up 12.5% to $9.15 billion in 2008, according to Gartner. SaaS versions of CRM amounted to 20% of that market, up from 15% in 2007.

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ExpressYard Car Repair Billing System the Most Widely used in North America
ATLANTA–(Business Wire)–
RMI, a leading independent provider of comprehensive software solutions to the
transportation industry, today announced it has acquired ExpressYard, a Flint,
Michigan-based provider of SaaS software applications that support the billing
of railcar repairs for contract shops and railroads in North America. Financial
terms of the transaction were not disclosed. ExpressYard will relocate its
Michigan operations to RMI`s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

Since 2002, ExpressYard has provided SaaS software solutions that enable
contract repair shops and railroads to manage the billing for railcar repair
work. The ExpressYard CRB solution allows repair facilities to manage all
aspects of railcar repair and billing activities, ensuring that all repairs are
billed in compliance with industry standards and regulations. More than 200
repair facilities throughout North America use ExpressYard CRB for accurate and
timely data capture and billing.

Founded in 1979, RMI provides critical transportation and logistics solutions
for a variety of participants in the transportation industry, including
short-line, regional, Class I, and terminal switching railroads, railcar leasing
companies, rail shippers, and railcar repair shops. RMI`s mission-critical,
integrated solutions assist its customers with many aspects of managing their
operations, including rail transportation, intermodal operations, equipment
maintenance and repair, shipment tracking, and freight revenue management
services.

Source ]]> http://www.saasbuzz.com/2009/11/rmi-acquires-saas-provider-expressyard-a-rail-car-billing-service/feed/ 1 http://www.saasbuzz.com/2009/11/why-googles-l-a-win-is-significant-for-saas-saasbuzz-com/ http://www.saasbuzz.com/2009/11/why-googles-l-a-win-is-significant-for-saas-saasbuzz-com/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:09:18 +0000 admin http://www.saasbuzz.com/?p=73

Why Google’s L.A. Win is Significant for SaaS

The Los Angeles City Council voted 12 to 0 last week to outsource its e-mail system to Google. The largest city in the country will make the cloud a home for its enterprise e-mail with a $7.2-million contract that will move all 30,000 city employees to Google. This might be the most significant win to-date for SaaS, a win that could drive others to cloud computing.

L.A. mediated security risks by placing a clause in the contract that requires Google to compensate the city in the event that the Google system is breached and city data exposed or stolen. That is something that every major SaaS contract should include, if you ask me. Also, this is not the free Gmail everyone knows. This is an enterprise version of their cloud-delivered software that comes without the ads, and with technical support.

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