While some are busy worrying about comparisons between Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamics CRM and offerings from CRM cloud computing provider Salesforce.com, Microsoft is more worried that Salesforce.com (News - Alert) is infringing on its rights. According to an eWeek report, Microsoft has filed suit against the cloud computing provider.
The suit claims patent infringement and was filed in the U.S. District Court in Seattle. Microsoft claims Salesforce.com has infringed on nine of its patents in its attempt to push SaaS (News - Alert) CRM solutions to customers.
Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing, has issued the following statement: "Microsoft has filed an action today, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, against Salesforce.com for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by their CRM product.
"Microsoft has been a leader and innovator in the software industry for decades and continues to invest billions of dollars each year in bringing great software products and services to market. We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard that investment, and therefore cannot stand idly by when others infringe our IP rights."
It really shouldn't be any surprised that Salesforce.com has evoked the wrath of the largest software company in the world. When it first launched, Salesforce.com may have seemed merely a fly on the giant's back. Now that cloud computing is up to a gallop and Salesforce.com is the premier provider in the "No Software" space, Microsoft is feeling the pressure in the market and on the bottom line.
Microsoft hasn't necessary relaxed on the cloud computing side. It does offer an xRM platform, but its main focus continues to be on-premises software while encouraging customers to run hybrid environments - as long as they continue to keep with Microsoft offerings.
The software giant is seeking relief in the form of treble damages and injunctions against Salesforce.com for the solutions allegedly infringing on Microsoft patents, which cover such issues as "Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data," "System and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu," "Method and system for stacking tool bars in a computer display" and "Automated Website creation using template-driven generation of active server page applications."
As of the eWeek report, Salesforce.com has yet to comment on the lawsuit.
In April, Salesforce.com and VMware together announced VMforce. This new cloud environment will provide an open path to the cloud for 6 million enterprise Java developers, including the 2 million-member Spring community.
Last week, the company finalized its acquisition of Jigsaw, the privately held major player in crowd-sourced data services based in San Mateo, Cali. In acquiring Jigsaw, salesforce.com makes its strategic entry into the $3 billion cloud-based, business contact data services market.
Salesforce.com is also grabbing attention in financial markets. As of Monday afternoon, Salesforce.com was off more than 1 percent, despite a price-target boost from Caris & Co. Backed by its "buy" rating, the firm lifted its price target from $87 to $100. Overall, analysts appear to be upbeat towards CRM. In fact, Zacks has reported 19 "buy" or better ratings, 11 "holds" and zero "sells".
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Kelly McGuire