Microsoft announced today that it will make Adobe Marketing Cloud the preferred marketing service for its Dynamics 365 Enterprise offering. The new partnership will give customers a powerful, comprehensive marketing service for intelligent business applications, Microsoft says.
First announced in July ahead of its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft Dynamics 365 will become available to customers in the coming weeks. It is a new, Azure cloud-hosted combination of the software giant’s CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource management) solutions. The goal is clear enough: To modernize these capabilities and bring them to market as a public cloud business management service.
Like its on-premises Dynamics offerings, Dynamics 365 allows customers to plug a wide array of business apps and services, customizing the solution according to their industry and other needs. And of course, it integrates deeply with Office 365, and with Microsoft’s Office client software on Windows, the web, and mobile platforms.
According to Microsoft, the new Adobe partnership will let the firms’ customers work across both Adobe Marketing Cloud and Dynamics 365 business applications and leverage AI (artificial intelligence), machine learning and advanced analytics capabilities.
“Customers will be able to use these integrations across Adobe and Microsoft solutions to create new data-driven sales and marketing capabilities,” a Microsoft statement explains. “The underlying data models will be extensible to enterprise customers, as well as third-party developers and partners, which will foster innovation and development across a shared ecosystem.”
The Adobe partnership was announced as part of the opening day of Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft’s annual IT conference. But it wasn’t the only Dynamics news of the day: The firm is also introducing a new Relationship Assistant for Dynamics 365 for Sales that leverages the AI capabilities of the Cortana Intelligence Suite to bring together multiple pieces of customer data from across the network, Microsoft says. This provides an “at-a-glance” view of customer information that can help guide future interactions with that customer.
Looked at from a high level, both of these Dynamics offerings are part of Microsoft’s transition to the cloud, both for itself and for its customers. Under CEO Satya Nadella, the firm has plotted a path to modernize its offerings and help customers bridge the gap between the on-premises solutions of the past and the cloud with hybrid offerings that provide a consistent experience, business continuity, and choice. It is, as Microsoft officials will no doubt stress at Ignite all week, a unique capability that its competitors cannot match.