Posted By
Darren Love
on
29. January 2013 01:03
Enter the arena of cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) and you’ll discover the underdog, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, battling it out with the heavy-weight competitor, Salesforce. Meanwhile, industry giants such as Oracle Siebel and SAP CRM are sitting on the sidelines.
So how do you decide whether to implement Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics CRM? One way to decide, of course, is to sign up for a free trial with each vendor – but that will quickly eat up your valuable time.

Here’s a quick comparison chart that provides some perspective.
|
Salesforce Enterprise Edition |
Microsoft Dynamics |
Pricing |
$150/user/month |
$115/user/month |
Attachment Size |
25 MB |
128 MB |
Data Capacity |
- 1 GB Data Storage
- 2 GB Data Storage
|
- 5 GB of storage for the organization.
- Additional storage can be purchased at $9.99/GB/Year Max 50 GB.
|
Business Rules/ Workflow |
- Visual workflows
- Rules to schedule/execute tasks
- Approval processes
|
- Workflow can run automatically or on-demand.
- Two types of Workflows:
|
Browser Support |
- Internet Explorer
- Microsoft Edge
- Chrome
- Safari
- Firefox
|
- Internet Explorer
- Microsoft Edge
- Chrome
- Safari
- Firefox
|
Device Support |
- Salesforce1 (mobile app for Android and iOS)
- Windows Mobile 8.1 (mobile browser app only)
|
- Dynamics 365 for phones (mobile app for Android, iOS, and Windows)
|
Website lead to CRM |
Available |
Web-to-lead using CRM SDK |
Test New Release Before Automatically Upgrading |
Possible |
Not possible |
Sandbox |
- Developer sandbox (refresh limit: daily/data limit: 200 MB)
- Developer pro sandbox (refresh limit: daily/data limit: 1 GB)
- Partial copy (developer sandbox + selected production data) (refresh limit: 5 days/data limit: 5 GB)
- Full copy (refresh limit: 29 days/data limit: same as production)
|
1 sandbox instance/tenant |
Login and Password Security |
Login types:
- Active directory or LDAP
- Single sign-on
- Social sign-on
Security:
- 2-step verification
- Trusted IP range
|
Login types:
- Forms authentication
- Window authentication
- Live ID authentication
- On-premises active directory federation services
Security:
- Multi-factor verification
- Trusted IP Range
- Location-based access rules
|
Search Functionality |
- Universal search
- Lookup search
- Federated search
|
- Universal search
- Advanced Find
- Federated search using lithium connector
|
Google Apps Integration |
Available |
Available using connect bridge |
Offline Capability |
Limited capabilities (paid) |
Full capabilities (free) |
Other Considerations
- User Experience
The user interface of Microsoft Dynamics CRM presents an advantage over Salesforce because users are already familiar with the process-driven interface of Microsoft products, which can be easily customized to individual users. Microsoft Dynamics CRM also has a great mobile option for iOS , Windows, and Android.
- Development
Microsoft Dynamics CRM employs the universal web standards JavaScript, .NET, and HTML so there is no reliance on specific programming languages. Microsoft Dynamics CRM also integrates with existing Microsoft applications: Excel, Outlook, OneNote, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Skype, Word, and Yammer.
- Deployment
While Saleforce.com is available only as a cloud application, Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers cloud, on-premises, and hybrid options. Microsoft also offers a variety of options for licensing to accommodate different organizations with varying needs and budgets. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has 99.9%-backed SLAs.
- Pricing
For Salesforce Enterprise Edition, the total cost of ownership is almost three times that of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. For small companies, the pricing difference may not be substantial, but for large enterprises it could climb to $200,000/year or more.
- Extendibility
Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be used as a development platform, which is one of its greatest benefits. It can customize views, business entities, fields, and forms without coding. Although Salesforce allows you to do this as well, Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows for greater flexibility with integration.
- Future Stability
Salesforce provides the greatest breadth, going beyond sales, marketing, and customer service to areas such as accounting. Although Salesforce has the lion’s share of the market and has enjoyed continuous growth in last few years, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has great potential due to its pricing structure, cross-browser support, and performance improvements.
Call us at 484-892-5713 or Contact Us today if you need help deciding whether Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics is right for your organization.
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