Microsoft Signs Agreement to Acquire Parature

Microsoft (MSFT) has acquired Parature, a provider of cloud-based social and customer engagements offerings, that will likely see more self-service elements added to the Redmond vendor's Dynamics CRM family.

Bob Stutz, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Dynamics CRM, wrote in a blog post that the acquisition of Parature "not only strengthens the Microsoft Dynamics CRM offering, but also accelerates our efforts to deliver differentiated customer care capabilities." Considering one of the stronger features of Parature's solutions is self-service, it sounds as though Microsoft Dynamics is heading along a path of more self-service CRM.

"Parature's technology allows businesses to create brand champions by taking advantage of functionality that includes self-service customer care portals on the web and Facebook, mobile customer care, chat capabilities, and a strong knowledge base, giving their customers the ability to connect with them on the channels they prefer," Stutz wrote.

It's an interesting acquisition for Microsoft. Parature boasts 70 million end users around the world. Chances are, most of them are already Microsoft customers in one way or another. Whether they are Dynamics customers is another question, but by integrating Parature's technology into Dynamics CRM, it could open up Microsoft's CRM platform to a whole new set of customers.

And that means new opportunities for Microsoft's channel partners. It's a good complementary technology to Dynamics and other Microsoft products and cloud offerings.

For partners, it will probably also mean the ability to go back to existing customers and sell them on the benefits of the Parature technology, as well to tend to potential customers that are looking for more control and more self-service capabilities.

"We strongly believe that the ability to deliver great customer care lies at the heart of a company's efforts to build loyalty and trust," Stutz wrote. "To succeed in this realm, organizations must seamlessly handle interactions across the many channels, including an ever-increasing array of social channels."