Microsoft and Salesforce Expand Strategic Partnership

Salesforce.com has expanded its partnership with Microsoft, today naming Microsoft Azure as its public cloud provider for Salesforce Marketing Cloud and building an integration that connects Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud with Microsoft Teams.

"At Salesforce, we're relentlessly focused on driving trust and success for our customers," said Marc Benioff and Keith Block, co-CEOs of Salesforce, in a statement. "We're excited to expand our partnership with Microsoft and bring together the leading CRM with Azure and Teams to deliver incredible customer experiences."

"In a world where every company is becoming a digital company, we want to enable every customer and partner to build experiences on our leading platforms," said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, in a statement. "By bringing together the power of Azure and Microsoft Teams with Salesforce, our aim is to help businesses harness the power of the Microsoft Cloud to better serve customers."

By bringing its Marketing Cloud workload to Azure, Salesforce joins more than 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies benefitting from an Azure infrastructure. The move will also enable Salesforce to optimize Marketing Cloud's performance as customer demand scales, reduce customer onboarding, enable customers to expand globally more quickly with Azure's global footprint, and help address local data security, privacy,and compliance requirements.

The Salesforce integration with Microsft Teams will enable Sales Cloud and Service Cloud users to search, view, and share Salesforce records directly within Teams. The new Teams integration for Salesforce Sales and Service Clouds will be available in late 2020.

Companies are already hailing the move as a good one.

"Marriott has more than 7,200 properties spanning 134 countries and territories, so driving efficiency and collaboration is critical," said Brian King, global officer of digital, distribution, revenue strategy, and global sales at Marriott International, in a statement. "The combination of Salesforce and Microsoft enables our teams to work better together to enhance the guest experience at every touchpoint."

"With 400 brands and teams in 190 countries, we are always looking for ways to scale more efficiently and strengthen collaboration," said Jane Moran, chief technology advisor at Unilever, in a statement. "The powerful combination of Salesforce and Microsoft enables us to be more productive and connect with each other and our customers like never before."