Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has a new integration of sales software, which it will be using to tap data from LinkedIn. According to the company’s CEO Satya Nadella, the initiative comes in handy as part of Microsoft’s long-term strategy in its specialization in business software. The sales software by Microsoft, which is known as Dynamics 365, is expected to give stiff competition to the current market leader; Salesforce.com.
We are in an era whereby the use of artificial intelligence has become more common. That being so, Nadella says that the software has AI’s competence, which will be vital. Apparently, the improvements on the software will be corresponding to the first major product initiative from Microsoft since it acquired LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) for $26 billion.
Some of the fields that the tech giant has been eyeing include sales and finance, which more often than not use specialized applications. However, the company has also been earmarked as one of those that prides itself at being in the forefront of productivity software. Some of the notable ones are Office 365 for general productivity like email and Azure. It has very little say at the moment in regards to sales software.
But the company has a long way to go
Microsoft has had a success story with Visa. The company was chosen by Visa to provide its cloud-based customer service software system leaving out Salesforce. Executive vice president of technology at Visa Rajat Taneja says that they were guided by Nadella’s three-cloud strategy in making their decision.
However, Microsoft will not just smile at the accomplishment of Dynamics 365 given that it is yet to report any revenue figures. At the same time, the software’s growth of 4% last year cannot be compared to the 26% of Salesforce.
Microsoft still has ambitions to hold onto including having all the products adapt to a common set of business data. The founder of analyst firm Constellation Research, R “Ray” Wang quotes, “Microsoft is putting together the contextual business data people need to be more efficient and build better relationships.”
In the meantime, Microsoft’s stock closed at $67.53 witnessing an increase of $1.13 or 1.70%.