Microsoft moved to boost its marketing software capability yesterday, with the acquisition of marketing automation company MarketingPilot for an undisclosed sum.
Plans for the new purchase will probably have to wait until the Convergence conference in March 2013 but it will no doubt be integrated with Dynamics CRM, and it is built on Microsoft technologies. It can be deployed on-premise and in the cloud, which aligns with Dynamics CRM. Microsoft is not known for its CRM acquisitions and given its approach of running the same code for on and off premise CRM there are few potential targets. There could be a lot of overlap as the MarketingPilot portfolio includes an integrated marketing-management system, lead management, ad-buying management, and its own CRM system. It is aimed at marketing and advertising agencies however, so this will bring a new dimension to the Microsoft CRM product.
Unlike something like Yammer (see here), this is not a major purchase for Microsoft and falls into the ‘tuck-in’ category of acquisitions.