Software giant Microsoft is one of the many companies heavily invested the PC industry that have decided to apply the phrase “if you can’t  beat them, join them” to their approach with the mobile market. The latest development is news that it will be bring the Dynamics CRM platform to mobile sometime in the second quarter of 2012.

Microsoft says that a cross-platform ‘native mobile client service’ (an HTML5 app perhaps?) will be introduced for Windows Phone 7, the iOS lineup, Android and BBOS; along with an update to Dynamics’ social functionality. Customers will be able to use the xRM framework to mobilize the rest of their BI environment as well, and pricing will be set at $30/seat/month with support for up to 3 devices per user.

A few details about the new social side of Dynamics have also been revealed this morning.

“Building on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM November 2011 service update, the new release will include more social capabilities with Activity Feeds that give people the ability to like and unlike status updates, improved status filtering, and the capability to view all statuses relating to a particular record view, which will make it even easier for users to stay on top of all relevant customer information to help them be more productive.”

While Microsoft’s engineering team is busy at work, so are its HR and legal departments. The follow-up update is that, while the company attempts to promote both its CRM solution and mobile platform at the same time, the head of outbound relations for Windows Phone 7 defected over to Amazon. Brandon Watson, head of the Developer Experience team until Feb 6, will assume his new post as director of the Kindle cross-platform team shortly after his official departure date.

On the legal front Microsoft also had an e-reader related update today. It has pulled the second of five patents included in a copyright infringement accusation launched against Barnes & Noble’s Android-powered Nook.