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(posted: Jan, 2017)
Tech trends, some familiar, some less so. The FTI included 158 in their annual report. We pull out just 5.
Microsoft and Salesforce Partner for Customer Success
posted: September 17th, 2015
Microsoft and Salesforce announced plans this week to extend their strategic partnership by connecting the Salesforce Customer Success Platform to Microsoft Office productivity apps and services.
The announcement was made at Dreamforce 2015, Salesforce's annual customer conference. The two tech leaders plan to offer solutions that integrate Salesforce with Skype for Business, OneNote, Delve and Windows 10.
Increasing Customer Productivity
"Customer success is at the heart of everything we do at Salesforce, including our partnership with Microsoft," said Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce in a statement. "Our collaboration has been so successful, now we're doubling down and delivering even more innovation that will help our mutual customers be more productive and connect with their customers in a whole new way."
Microsoft and Salesforce are currently delivering on the partnership they announced back in October 2014, rolling out two new integrations: Salesforce App for Outlook, which works with Outlook 2013 and Office 365, and Salesforce1 Mobile App for Microsoft Office.
A Look at the New Solutions
- Skype for Business with Salesforce Lightning Experience: With this integration, Office 365 customers can tap Skype to create Web meetings, see if colleagues are online, click to chat and make voice and video calls from the Salesforce Lightning Experience.
- OneNote with Salesforce: This will allow users to associate notes with Salesforce records, and view and edit notes directly in OneNote.
- Office Graph & Office Delve with Salesforce: Office 365 users will be able to view and discover Salesforce content, including sales Relevant Products/Services opportunities, customer accounts and service cases, in Office Delve.
Additionally, Salesforce will deliver a Windows 10 app to help sales teams move deals forward while on the go, using their favorite Windows devices.
Availability of Office Graph and Office Delve as well as the Salesforce1 Mobile App for Windows 10 is anticipated in the second half of 2016.
The companies expect to release previews of the Skype for Business / Salesforce Lightning Experience integration and the OneNote / Salesforce Lightning Experience integration in the second half of 2016, with no date yet for full availability.
Our Analysis
This move by Salesforce and Microsoft is going to provide enormous value for enterprise customers. It should improve collaboration and productivity for most teams, and streamline processes.
These integrated programs also have the potential to add to your data analysis. It offers the possibility of taking the data generated in those applications, parsing it and studying it, and developing new insights, plans and projections within the scope of the business.
