Salesforce and Microsoft Deliver Salesforce Lightning for Outlook—Unifying the World’s #1 CRM and Business Email Services

Salesforce and Microsoft Deliver Salesforce Lightning for Outlook—Unifying the World’s #1 CRM and Business Email Services

New Lightning for Outlook gives users an integrated, customizable experience across Salesforce and Microsoft Outlook, empowering teams to be more productive than ever before

Innovations include new Lightning Components in Outlook, Lightning Sync and the new Lightning User Experience

With Lightning Components in Outlook, now partners and customers can build custom components on the Salesforce Platform and seamlessly snap them into Outlook for a personalized inbox experience

Lightning for Outlook is the latest solution from Salesforce and Microsoft’s strategic partnership, making mutual customers more successful

SAN FRANCISCO—June 28, 2016—Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the Customer Success Platform and world’s #1 CRM company, today announced Lightning for Outlook, unifying the world’s #1 CRM and business email services. With the new Lightning for Outlook add-in, users have an integrated, customizable experience across Salesforce and Microsoft Outlook, empowering them to create a tailored inbox experience so they can work the way they want. Lightning for Outlook is the latest solution resulting from Salesforce and Microsoft’s strategic partnership, which empowers our customers to collaborate more effectively. Leading companies including Accenture, BMC Software, TechBridge and Unilever leverage joint solutions from Salesforce and Microsoft to connect with their customers in entirely new ways.

Today, sales and service reps rely on two apps above all others—CRM and email. CRM helps them structure their day, get a 360-degree view of their customers and know when to engage, while email is how reps communicate. In fact, the average sales rep spends more than 70 percent of their time sending and responding to email every week. Traditionally, CRM and email have been disconnected, and reps have had to spend their day toggling between the apps and updating data manually.

Introducing Lightning for Outlook: Connecting the World’s #1 CRM and Business Email Services
Lightning Components, the reusable building blocks of code that snap into apps with drag-and-drop ease, are at the core of Lightning for Outlook. Developers use the Lightning Component Framework to build custom components which can either be used to create new apps or be embedded into third-party apps. To create entirely new apps, business users and developers can use Salesforce Lightning App Builder, and leverage the broad array of components built by Salesforce, third-party developers, partners or even other Salesforce customers—all available on the AppExchange. And for the first time, users will soon be able to embed components into a non-Salesforce application—Outlook.

The new Lightning for Outlook add-in seamlessly combines Salesforce and Outlook into one powerful solution. Now, mutual customers have an integrated way to work across both Salesforce and Outlook so they can be more productive than ever before.

? New Lightning Components in Outlook: With Lightning’s component-based architecture, customers will soon be able to quickly and easily snap new functionality into their Outlook inbox. For example, sales reps will be able to update a price quote with Salesforce SteelBrick CPQ right from within Outlook or even leverage a partner component like Altify that allows them to accelerate sales performance, increasing their productivity and helping them sell the way they want.
? New Lightning Sync: Now generally available, Lightning Sync enables users to automatically sync contacts and calendar events across Outlook and Salesforce, saving time and effort spent manually adding entries.
? New Lightning Experience in Outlook: Lightning for Outlook has been completely redesigned to reflect the Lightning User Experience. As a user scrolls through their inbox, the modern and intuitive UX makes it easy to view and engage with relevant insights and apps. Additionally, the new search functionality makes it easy to search for Salesforce records within Outlook. For example, a service rep can now search Salesforce for an existing customer record without leaving the Outlook inbox, saving them time.

The Salesforce Lightning for Outlook add-in is available to Outlook users across Windows, Mac and Web and is coming soon to Outlook Mobile. For detailed requirements, please refer to the Microsoft blog.

Comments on the News
? “Today’s sales reps want to sell the way they want, where they want—whether that is in CRM, their inbox or their mobile device,” said Adam Blitzer, GM and EVP, Sales Cloud, Salesforce. “With Lightning for Outlook, the power of Salesforce is now available to sales reps right in their inbox, making it easier than ever for them to be more productive and sell faster.”
? “As part of our ongoing strategic partnership with Salesforce, Lightning for Outlook gives users a great way to work with Salesforce right from within Outlook. The solution enhances productivity for our joint customers and helps salespeople work smarter and more efficiently,” said Jared Spataro, GM of Microsoft Office, Microsoft.
? “The relationship between Salesforce and Microsoft has never been stronger,” said Ryan Aytay, EVP of Strategic Alliances, Salesforce. “Lightning for Outlook, the latest solution for our mutual customers, provides a unified experience across the two most widely used apps for salespeople—Salesforce and Outlook—empowering users to reach new levels of productivity and customer success.”
? “At Accenture, our top priority is helping clients navigate the accelerated rate of digital change,” said Andrew Wilson, CIO, Accenture. “Offering out-of-the-box integration between platforms, the joint solutions from Salesforce and Microsoft deliver at speed and avoid rework. These solutions help us arm our people with the relevant data right at their fingertips so they can connect globally and deliver unparalleled insights and value for our clients.”
? “The world is becoming more interconnected than ever before, yet most technology solutions are isolated from one another so users are spending their valuable time toggling between complex apps and manually updating data,” said Mary Wardley, VP of CRM Applications and Customer Experience, IDC. “This relationship between Microsoft and Salesforce is an excellent example of two companies who are putting the customer first by offering joint solutions built with the end user in mind, so individuals can be more productive and companies can digitally transform faster.”

Building on a Foundation of Success
These new integrations will build on existing joint solutions delivered by Salesforce and Microsoft that enable our mutual customers to be more productive than ever before, including:
? Salesforce1 Office Edition
? Salesforce Files Connect integration with SharePoint and OneDrive for Business
? Skype for Business Integration
? SalesforceIQ Inbox
? Salesforce Wave Connector for Excel
? Salesforce integration with Power Query for Excel
? Salesforce Mobile SDK for Windows
? Salesforce and Windows integration
? Power BI for Office 365 integration with Salesforce
? Single sign on integration between Salesforce, Office 365 and Azure AD

Additional Information
? To learn more about joint solutions from Salesforce and Microsoft, please visit: http://www.salesforce.com/campaigns/microsoft/
? To see Microsoft’s blog post on this news, please visit: https://aka.ms/sfofficeblog

Pricing and Availability
? The Lightning for Outlook add-in is generally available today via the Office Store at no additional cost to all Sales Cloud users.
? Lightning Sync is generally available today at no additional cost to users with a Sales Cloud Lightning Enterprise Edition and above.
? Lightning Components Framework in Outlook will be generally available in Fall 2016. Pricing will be announced at that time.

Connect with Salesforce
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? Follow @Salesforce on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Salesforce

About Salesforce

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, empowering companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way through the power of CRM + AI + Data + Trust on one unified platform: Einstein 1. For more information visit: www.salesforce.com. 

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit https://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.