Little over a month after Microsoft filed a patent infringement suit targeting Salesforce.com’s customer-relationship management (CRM) software, Salesforce.com has filed a countersuit against Microsoft that claims the software maker has infringed its patents for products such as .Net and Sharepoint.
Based in San Francisco, Salesforce.com is the world’s biggest seller of internet-based customer-management programs, its flagship product being a cloud-based CRM application for sales teams.
Salesforce.com’s filing escalates a tussle between the two companies over the growing market for cloud-computing software – Salesforce's software competes directly with Microsoft’s Dynamics programs.
CRM is a potentially very lucrative market as companies move more of their business online and are expected to provide products and services that are more closely tailored to their customers.
Both suits are appealing to the courts to award compensatory damages and to order the other company to stop using its technology.
