The sheet was pulled off Dynamics CRM Live, which the company says will offer a "fast and flexible way to address the unique customer relationship management (CRM) needs of each customer."

At a conference in Boston, Ballmer said, "This is an offering I think most people would consider the single most inevitable announcement in the history of Microsoft," according to the IT Jungle. Other people in the company had less boring ways of describing the product, however.

Jeff Raikes, the president of the Microsoft Business Division, spoke of it in a more usual manner in the press release.

"We believe in the power of software plus services, and today's introduction of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live is another example of our delivering against that vision," he said. "Microsoft CRM Live will provide a software-as-a-service option for deploying our leading CRM solution and will also afford partners new opportunities to deliver their value-added services."

Microsoft gave a reasonable range for the expected launch - "the second quarter of 2007 - but was more vague when it came to pricing. Dynamics CRM Live "will be offered as a range of service offerings on a monthly subscription basis . . . . Further pricing and product packaging information will be disclosed before the introduction of the service."

At the same conference, the company also "reconfirmed its plans to release a new Microsoft BizTalk Server-based integration this quarter that will connect Microsoft CRM to enterprise resource planning (ERP) and CRM applications from other vendors such as Siebel Systems Inc., SAP AG and Oracle Corp."

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