Rivals respond to Microsoft's CRM plans
Competitors were quick to respond to Microsoft's latest plans for hosted CRM.
Microsoft's pricing was clearly aimed squarely at Salesforce.com, which was quick to dismiss Microsoft's entry into the market, noting that the company has been talking about its plans for sometime without actually releasing the product.
"I think that Microsoft has announced this service more often than Roger Federer has won Wimbledon," Bruce Francis, Salesforce VP of corporate strategy, said in a statement.
Another rival, SugarCRM, took issue with the notion that rivals don't offer the option of moving from a hosted to an on-premise model, saying that it offers just that choice.
"SugarCRM has been providing the ability for customers to swap deployments from on-demand to on-site and vice versa since December 2004, and we have had dozens of customers who took advantage of this," Tara Spalding, SugarCRM's vice president of corporate marketing, said in an e-mail.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
