Microsoft claims two-thirds of its 4.4 million Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers run the product in the cloud.
Redmond has hailed the adoption of Dynamics CRM Online – run in its Azure cloud environment – as it pushes its cloud-first, mobile-first strategy at its annual Microsoft Convergence event in Barcelona this week.
Business solutions executive VP Kirill Tatarinov told media during a Q&A session: "We see tremendous interest in the cloud and we continue to see it in Dynamics CRM. Two out of three customers, approximately, [are] choosing the cloud solution."
He admitted that the largest deployments of Redmond’s CRM tool remain on-premise, but claimed this is limited to highly regulated industries like financial services when they implement the system for tens of thousands of staff.
And while he claimed security was high on Microsoft’s agenda, he said that for most customers, data privacy concerns were not stopping them from buying Dynamics CRM Online as they replace older products.
He said: "Business solutions and ERP business solutions, customers are replacing them in a renewal cycle. Migration from those customers who already have their tools [on-premise] will take time, but will happen, and what we’re seeing happening now is that enterprises are moving to the cloud. As organisations deploy new multi-frame workloads, those workloads are more often than not cloud."
The news comes before Dynamics CRM 2015 is released in December, featuring new integrations with Azure and Windows Phone 8.1 voice assistant Cortana.
And IBM has become a Redmond partner to assist in the roll out, despite Microsoft’s prediction that many businesses will go for a hybrid or cloud-only approach.
Tatarinov said: "With Dynamics CRM 2015 you can enable public, private and hybrid cloud, you will have the option of doing them in combined fashion."
SMBs
He predicted that SMBs want a simple, standardised solution like those offered from the cloud, and in particular highlighted Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015, its ERP solution for small and medium businesses.
He said: "Small orgs don’t have time to conffigure and customise, they realy need a solution that comes oput of the box they need a soltuion that fits their needs from the get go."
Redmond claims more than 100,000 customers run mission-critical applications on NAV, one being Onduline, a building products retailer.
CIO Gwendal Meledo said the integration offered by NAV was key for his business. "NAV is the choice because we decided to leverage the full ecosystem of Microsoft. That’s the cloud, Office 365, SharePoint, business intelligence too. All those solutions together made it the right thing for us."
