Microsoft has announced the release of the latest version of its customer relationship management (CRM) software.

CRM 4.0, which had previously gone under the code-name of Titan, has this week been made available for both end user organisations and hosting partners who wish to support the application as a third-party service.

The critical development in the latest version is that it is now based on a multitenant architecture. This allows hosting partners – and Microsoft itself when it offers the software as a direct service in late 2008 – to serve multiple customers with a single instance of the application.

This means they will be able to server more customers with fewer hardware and management resources – therefore making the software-as-a-service business model more viable for the service provider.

The application also includes integration with Microsoft’s unified communications platform, and some added business intelligence functionality.

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