Rival snags Microsoft GM

Salesforce.com has announced that it has hired Matt Miszewski, a former general manager at Microsoft, to serve as Salesforce.com's senior vice president for the global public sector.

Miszewski previously worked at Microsoft as general manager of worldwide government. He was "the chief strategist behind Microsoft's global government practice and guides the business, technical and architectural structure of Microsoft’s offerings in the government industry," according to a Microsoft bio.

Miszewski will lead Salesforce.com's cloud computing public-sector initiatives, according to a press release posted on his blog. He reports to Salesforce.com's executive vice president of sales, Hilarie Koplow-McAdams.

Earlier in his career, Miszewski worked as the CIO for the state of Wisconsin, overseeing a $400 million IT budget. The Microsoft bio indicates that he negotiated "a Microsoft enterprise licensing agreement with terms as good or better than those for all other states except California and New York," saving $2.5 million per year.

Salesforce.com is a Microsoft rival in the hosted customer relationship management space. Microsoft stepped up the CRM competition earlier this week by launching its new Dynamics CRM 2011 Online service.