Why the Google SalesForce.com deal is no big deal, and CRM software companies could care less, especially Microsoft

On Monday Salesforce.com and Google announced a CRM deal that really is no big deal. I read about it on Sunday night on TechCrunch, to me it’s a big to do about nothing. Do you want to know what the top CRM software installations are? Why would you care, and what is CRM Software, and what can it do for you? Let’s answer the simple questions first, and maybe, just maybe that will help to answer why you should care, and why the announcement was no big deal.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and CRM Software has been around since the accounting days and client databases. Every big company has a CRM system, and by in large their customer and sales people do use. A research study published showed that only 4.5% of the companies had CRM Software. I didn’t look in to the details too much, but the website caters to small business, and so their research could be just based on SMB market. Why is that not a big deal, that your company or your small business does not have a CRM system?

Well, that is the big point of this blog, that with email, calendar, and web based systems, who really needs CRM. The point of the Google Salesforce.com partnership is just that in my opinion, it’s no big deal. Email is the killer app as far as CRM is concerned, and with contact management systems built in to Gmail or Outlook, those are the systems people will use. Now Salesforce.com has some great functionality, and for more than one person shops it’s a great way to manage customer relationships. Google and Microsoft are the big players in CRM, no SalesForce.com you are not in trouble. The better features you keep building, the more you stay ahead of the free email contact management systems. For any CRM Software provider to compete, they just have to innovate and make their product more business savvy and less email like.

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