Salesforce.com, an online business solutions provider (read on-demand CRM provider), has released the latest version of their market-leading CRM suite. The new version codenamed “Summer ‘06” will incorporate upgrades in areas of sales, service and support and marketing.

The most important update is the SAP Connector update. According to Salesforce, “With this latest release, Summer ‘06, salesforce.com is giving a preview of its next important stage of evolution. Beyond the anticipated application functionality it is releasing the critical component to enterprise class customers: native integration to their back office system. With the release of the Salesforce Connector for SAP R/3, salesforce.com is making the very important bridge for customers between their traditional enterprise systems and their on-demand installation.”'

This means that SAP customers wouldn’t really need to move their CRM software over to SAP, especially when Salesforce have a connector in place. The Salesforce Connector for SAP R/3 will be free for Unlimited Edition customers and will cost $12,000 per annum for Enterprise Edition customers.

Other features that have been included in the update include:

• Salesforce PRM: Complete visibility and lifecycle management of indirect sales channels.
• Lead history tracking: One can analyze every time a lead is touched to maximize conversions.
• Mobile enhancements.
• Advanced call scripting to guide sales and service professionals through the right set of interactions with every customer.
• Service entitlements to provide more information to service reps about customer service contracts to help match the specific level of service for every customer.

Summer ’06 is available in Personal, Team, Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited Editions.