Microsoft today demonstrated Dynamics AX 2012 to a sold-out audience at Convergence 2011 and discussed their vision for taking Dynamics ERP to the cloud and providing greater agility to dynamic businesses.
Microsoft expects the next major release of Dynamics ERP to be available on the Windows Azure cloud platform while still providing the same features and benefits that customers have come to expect from the Dynamics products. In order to aid partners to execute a move to the cloud, Microsoft released the Dynamics Cloud Partner Profitability Guide. David Goad, managing director, eSavvy Pty Ltd, cannot but praise Microsoft’s efforts: “We see the cloud as a turning point in the market that provides the opportunity to create a new business model geared toward increasing the profitability and agility of our company. The Microsoft Dynamics Cloud Partner Profitability Guide really helped us to solidify that opinion. It offers clear guidance on how to benefit from this shift and serves as a great starting point for all partners looking to build a strong, cloud-based business.”
Microsoft also provided a first look at their upcoming Dynamics AX 2012 product. Dynamics AX 2012 is designed to allow users to anticipate change and provides greater agility with a unified, model-driven architecture. Kirill Tatarinov, corporate vice president for Microsoft Business Solutions, notes that “Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 frees customers from the electronic concrete that has plagued the ERP industry for so long. Customers want flexible yet cost- effective business applications that work the way they do instead of being forced to adapt to the software.”
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will aid in simplifying decision-making by providing the following features:
- A powerful foundation through prebuilt industry capabilities and comprehensive, core ERP functionality for financial, human resources and operations management. Delivered in a single, global solution, it gives customers rapid time to value and enables partners to easily deliver packaged vertical offerings.
- A new level of agility through a set of Unified Natural Models, which serves as a library of business processes that reflect real-world situations, and enables customers to easily modify their organizations and processes to meet their changing business needs.
- Simplicity across the board, through the intuitive RoleTailored experience and access to context-sensitive business intelligence (BI) that is relevant to the work at hand. The familiar Microsoft Office user interface drives adoption, and the enhanced BI capabilities help customers uncover fresh insights that can lead to faster and more informed decision-making.
Microsoft will release a beta of Dynamics AX 2012 this month with the final release expected in August 2011.
Further reading: Microsoft
