BT starts reselling Salesforce CRM

BT has signed a deal with Salesforce.com that will see the software-as-a-service company's customer-relationship-management software sold through BT Business.

The deal, announced on and effective from Thursday, means BT's small to medium-sized business customers can buy Salesforce.com's CRM package through BT. As with other software-as-a-service (SaaS) products — a field in which Salesforce.com was something of a pioneer — the software takes the form of a hosted application, available on a subscription basis.

BT already has similar SaaS distribution deals with NetSuite and SugarCRM.

"Clients are the lifeblood of any business, so managing these relationships effectively is crucial," said BT Business managing director Bill Murphy in a statement on Thursday. "With this announcement we are continuing to change the way small and medium-sized businesses can think about and buy their business applications, delivering to them the benefits of services previously available only to larger companies."

For BT's customers, the CRM service now forms part of their supplier's BT Applications portfolio. It is available on a free 30-day trial, after which it must be paid for. BT did not respond to a request for pricing.

BT Business's SaaS chief, Chris Lindsay, said earlier this week that many small businesses remained ignorant of the supposed benefits of SaaS.