Microsoft just took a direct swipe at Salesforce with a new enterprise-ready version of LinkedIn's product for sales professionals, Sales Navigator.
"Today's announcements take Sales Navigator to the next level," Doug Camplejohn, LinkedIn sales solutions head of product, said in a blog.
The new product steps up competition with arch rival Salesforce.
Microsoft beat out Salesforce to acquire Linkedin for $26.2 billion — by far the company's largest acquisition to date — in June.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was so concerned, he accused the company of "anti-competitive behavior" and urged regulators to investigate.
Flash-forward less than a year and Microsoft's new Sales Navigator Enterprise Edition incorporates many features aimed at turning LinkedIn into a must-have tool for sales teams at big companies.
Among other features, the new enterprise version increases the number of LinkedIn messages users can send to 50 per month, makes it easier for large companies to manage the product by adding single sign-on and allows sales teams to draw on LinkedIn connections from anyone within their organization with a new feature called TeamLink Extend.
The Sales Navigator tool does integrate with Salesforce's CRM system, as well as Microsoft's competing Dynamics CRM. But it's also a clear indication of the synergies between LinkedIn, which has a massive database of information about professionals and their business relationships, and Microsoft's ambitions to target company sales forces with its products.
Subscriptions will also include access to a tool called PointDrive, created by a company acquired by LinkedIn, for easily sharing content like presentations, images, links and videos with prospective customers. Pricing starts at $1,600 per seat per year, with the price dropping with more subscriptions and longer contracts.
In the second quarter, Sales Navigator subscriptions increased 20 percent over the prior year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the company's most recent quarterly earnings conference call. Customers include SAP, Ernst & Young, The Sacramento Kings, Symantec and PayPal.
Nadella is quickly putting his acquisition dollars to work in other areas: LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined Microsoft's board, the company announced last week, to deepen its Silicon Valley ties and work on artificial intelligence.
Correction: This story originally mischaracterized Sales Navigator. This story has also been updated to clarify that Sales Navigator integrates with Salesforce as well as Microsoft Dynamics CRM.