Development Strategy

Huge R&D

Microsoft’s strategy is to spend hugely on R&D - outspending the competition by at least a factor of three in any segment - then to sell products based upon this R&D at a cheaper price than the competition but at much higher volumes.

Since Microsoft entered the business solutions space in April 2001 (by acquiring Great Plains - the global mid-market leading ERP vendor at that time) they have invested over 2 billion U.S. dollars per annum into Business Solutions, which is over 30% of their total R&D budget, for a division representing less than 2% of their sales.

The fruits of this astonishing investment are now coming to market (over 20 billion U.S. dollars). M4 Systems originally invested in Great Plains skills and continued investing in Microsoft Business Solutions skills, based upon Microsoft’s stated commitment at that time. We are delighted, both as a company and for our customers, that our decision has now been vindicated. The Dynamics products now coming to market have exceeded our optimistic expectations. In our opinion no other software vendor in the mid-market sector has the resources to catch up and offer such powerful solutions at such low prices within at least the next 10 years.

Microsoft have also announced a new simplified BRL pricing strategy, offering outstanding value for money and now much more competitively priced compared to Sage, Access, Exchequer and Pegasus for smaller organisations (less than 10 users).