Dynamics Development Roadmap

Vision to deliver breakthrough innovation

As already mentioned Microsoft has been investing huge resources into Research & Development within the Business Solutions Division in order to be able to deliver on their ambitious vision.

Breakthrough Innovation Shipping Now !

This huge R&D (code-named Project Green) has already yielded substantial benefits. Research, such as observing how hundreds of different companies actually perform business processes, and Developments, such as creating much deeper integrations with SQL Server 2005, Office and SharePoint, have already yielded some breakthroughs for the Dynamics product. Examples just released with Dynamics GP include Roles-based User Experience, SQL Reporting Services for Dynamics GP, SharePoint Business Portal for Dynamics GP and Web Services for Dynamics GP.

Dynamics GP 10 +

The next release of Dynamics GP Version 10 is just about to ship in Q1 2007. It has deep integration with Office 12 (2007). This will be the most significant upgrade to Office since Office 95. It will also be optimised to take advantage of Windows Vista shipping at the same time: the most significant Windows release since Windows 95. This version will have a more natural user experience with context sensitive, Ribbon menu, plus workflow capability based on the Windows Workflow Engine in SharePoint 2007, thus enabling much greater productivity and effectiveness.

A common question posed is "What is Microsoft's strategy with regards to its stable of ERP Products (formally Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and Axapta)?". The answer is that they will ALL continue to be enhanced and surrounded by common new .Net modules plus a common Office user interface, with the core business logic beginning to converge around 2008. Software Assurance ensures that this will not cost customers any additional fees and because each version is guaranteed to be supported for at least 5 years, businesses can plan for the future with the confidence of minimal disruption and be secure in their investment.

Fortunately for M4 (since we have always specialised in Great Plains, now Dynamics GP) Great Plains / Dynamics GP has always been first in the queue - by an average of 2 years - in benefiting from all of this innovation (formerly code-named Project Green). For example, it was first with Office Interface, first with SharePoint Business Portal, first with Microsoft CRM integration, first to be re-branded Dynamics, first with Role-based User Experience, first with pre-defined SQL Reporting Services cubes. The first with extensible Web Services and Visual Studio .Net Development Toolkit plug-in. This continues with Version GP 10.0 being the first with Windows Workflow Engine and Office 2007 Interface.

Version 10 of Dynamics GP has already delivered upon most of this Roadmap.

Microsoft CRM Roadmap

Microsoft CRM was written from the ground up as a .Net product and is Microsoft's flagship .Net 2.0 Application.

The huge R&D that has been invested in CRM will continue, fuelled by its run-away success in the market.

An interim release V3C release has just been released (December 2006) to take advantage of Vista and Office 2007. It has improved Outlook client performance particularly in off-line mode and ribbon interface enhancements for the Outlook client.

Version 4.0 is due in Q2 2007 this will have hundreds of enhancements including improved multi-currency functionality and a true multi-tenancy architecture, offering customers more deployment options, with the same code base enabling movement between hosted and on-premise environments.