Today, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft reaffirmed its commitment to bring business process software to Azure. Kirill Tatarinov, president of the company's Business Solutions group, promises that Dynamics NAV 2013 and Dynamics GP 2013, which are separately set to be available in calendar fourth quarter, "will run on Windows Azure in an elastic Microsoft cloud". Dynamics AX 2012 R2 is on track for similar release.
Dynamics NAV and GP are designed for small-to-midsize organizations. SMBs looking for an early taste of NAV 2013 will get their chance when a beta becomes available in May, says Tatarinov, during Microsoft Convergence 2012. The next AX version, which looks to be v2014, will evolve into an enterprise cloud service.
Looked at together, and with Dynamics CRM, Microsoft is ever-so-slowly, but methodically, building out cloud-based ERP, particularly for mid-size businesses and enterprises. "Last year at Convergence 2011 we announced that the entire portfolio of Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions is moving to the cloud", Tatarinov says. With today's announcements, there's light in the distance, but no end of the tunnel yet.
During the main keynote, COO Kevin Turner touts a "new era for Dynamics", emphasizing: "It's a very exciting time to be in technology, and to be in IT". Microsoft tailors its products for private, public and hybrid clouds, an increasingly popular trend among companies selling enterprise software and services.
"The shift to the cloud, ladies and gentlemen, a year ago it was sort of talked about as a trend, now it's in full mainstream", Turner says. "We're seeing tens of millions of customers move to the cloud in very, very rapid ways -- and if you look at this particular quote from Forrester, it's going to go from a $40 billion industry to a $240 billion industry just by 2020. We actually think that number is light, maybe even by two, at the speed that we're seeing the cloud take hold".
That's a stunning proclamation about cloud computing's future.
The majority of cloud deployments are the hybrid type, Turner says. But his sales pitch should make former CEO Steve Jobs (if he was still with us) blush. Microsoft's COO boasts about giving customers choice of cloud solutions, but delivers a veiled caveat intended to be benefit: "As long as you have Active Directory completely deployed, and System Center completely deployed, you can really leverage the common technologies that we have across identity, virtualization, management, and development -- and no other company can provide that to you in the cloud".
Well, yeah, if the cloud requires Microsoft infrastructure, of course "no other company can provide that to you".
Not to be ignored, Microsoft revealed some data about Dynamics CRM, which competes with Salesforce.com: 33,000 customers and 2.25 million users.
"Dynamics CRM Online has been a poster child of what business solutions in the cloud ought to be", Tatarinov says. When it's the only major Dynamics product truly in the cloud, how can it not be?
"Later this spring, we will provide Dynamics CRM Online with capabilities that truly enable consumerized scenarios in the business", Tatarinov promises. "We will support a broad range of browsers in addition to Internet Explorer. And we will support a broad range of devices". Would you believe Android and iOS?
"Later this year we will update Dynamics CRM Online again -- and with that full update we will provide capabilities for social interaction and customer care scenarios", he continues.
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