Salesforce.com, and likewise Dynamics CRM, doesn't fit the SMB market. BCM does, but there isn't a hosted option for it. Azure is too expensive for it as well. I'd like to see more SMB offerings for Microsoft cloud services. Office 365 pricing for SMB's is a good start, but the "all in the cloud" mantra isn't a complete assessment of what's available for SMB's.
Update: I remembered that someone told me once that Salesforce.com (or some kind of dedicated CRM/sales service like it) was about $99/user/mth for small volume licensing, which is JUST LUDICROUS! I was told that it would cost much less than that if I committed to 100 or more seats. Sales CRM services should cost LESS for smaller businesses, because their sales figures would be smaller and they need fewer features. Obviously someone in the Salesforce pricing team doesn't get how royalties and commissions work.
Microsoft is making the latest version of its hosted CRM offering available worldwide on January 17, three days ahead of the official “global launch” of its CRM 2011 product family.
Prior releases of Dynamics CRM were available only in North America. Dynamics CRM Online 2011 is available in the U.S., Canada and 40 other countries as of January 17. The on-premises and partner-hosted versions will be released to manufacturing on February 28, company officials said today. Volume licensees, TechNet and MSDN subscribers will be able to download it on that day.
Microsoft officials said 11,500 testers kicked the tires of the latest release of Dynamics CRM 2011.
CRM 2011, codenamed CRM 5, will add a native Microsoft Outlook Client, an Office-like Ribbon and more user personalization options. It also will provide guided process dialogs, inline data visualizations, performance and goal management capabilities and real-time dashboards, company officials have said.
Microsoft will be offering its CRM Online 2011 service for a promotional introductory price of $34 per user per month, as company officials said last year.
Microsoft CRM rival Salesforce.com is in the midst of launching its Spring 2011 update of its Cloud 2 platform, the first of three platform updates planned for calendar 2011. The newest version of Salesforce’s platform includes a number of Facebook- and Twitter-like features, including the use of @ mentions and hashtags, the ability to send Chatter invitations, and a “Like” button capability in users’ feeds.
