Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Microsoft Corp. is following its top rivals into the customer relationship management (CRM) frenzy that has been raging for the last week and a half with the introduction of a new cloud suite designed to help salespeople become more productive. Copying one of its most historically successful tactics in the even-more-cutthroat infrastructure-as-a-service space, the Redmond giant hopes to make up what it lacks in novelty with massive discounts.

The launch of the bundle comes less than 48 hours after Salesforce.com, the world’s top provider of managed CRM software, overhauled its flagship platform with new features aimed at appealing to the growing percentage of its users who access the service from mobile devices. The landmark update set the tone for the company’s forthcoming Dreamforce ’14 conference in San Francisco and doubled as a response to arch-nemesis Oracle Corp.’s push into smartphones and tablets at its own annual customer summit last week.

The new Sales Productivity suite from Microsoft bucks the mobile-first trend and instead emphasizes pricing. The bundle offers a Professional subscription to Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM service, Power BI business intelligence platform (which is tightly integrated with Hortonworks Inc.’s Hadoop distribution) and Office 365 for $65 per user per month. That’s $40 cheaper than the cost of buying each component separately.

Not leaving existing customers out of the loop, Microsoft is offering to upgrade Office 365 licenses to Sales Productivity for $45 per month, which is a less than half the list rate of $105 per month for the bundle. The catch is that the markdown is only available on a “promotional” basis until the end of the year, according to well-connected Microsoft blogger Mary Jo Foley, after which users must pay full price.

But that’s still only a small fraction of the $295 that Salesforce.com charges for the same functionality, Microsoft claims. That pitch has helped Microsoft snag several lucrative accounts from the CRM stalwart, including the US business of intentional accounting powerhouse Grant Thornton International Ltd. and CSX Transportation, a railroad operator with 12,000 employees.