By Chris Alliegro [bio]
Posted: Sep. 25, 2006

• Illustration: Reading Roadmap Diagrams

The following an excerpt of a Product Roadmap report published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

This roadmap report summarizes current and planned versions of the main products produced by the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) division. The Roadmap provides a single reference for MBS customers and partners, providing answers to questions such as:

• What are the main functions and target markets of the Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) product lines from MBS?
• What other products does MBS ship and what do they do?
• Which of these products work together?
• How do these products work with traditional Microsoft products, such as Office and SQL Server?
• What are the release plans for these products over the next several years?
• What is the status of Microsoft's plan to converge on a single ERP product?

What This Report Provides

This report supplies information about past product versions and summaries of features and release dates for new and planned product versions. This information can help Dynamics customers and partners planning migrations, scheduling training, and weighing purchasing decisions and partnering strategies.

Preparing for Upcoming Releases

This report also summarizes recent (through mid-2006) and planned major releases of MBS products, listing major features and important dependencies on other products.

All information on future releases is our interpretation of the most credible public sources. In general, our information about a planned release will become more accurate as its release date approaches. However, Microsoft does not endorse this report, and its product plans are subject to change at any time.

How This Report Is Organized

This roadmap report is divided into five chapters.

"Dynamics ERP and CRM" covers the MBS suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) product lines. This includes all editions of Dynamics AX, GP, NAV, SL, and CRM. We provide a brief description of each product, most recent releases, and planned releases. The chapter also includes a timeline of recent and planned releases. (The illustration "Reading Roadmap Diagrams" provides a key to roadmap timeline diagrams.)

"Consolidation Progress Report" provides a progress report on Microsoft's two-phase plan (referred to as Dynamics Wave One and Dynamics Wave Two) to consolidate its ERP line into a single product. We describe the goals and objectives of these phases, and progress towards those goals to date.

"Supplemental MBS Products" summarizes past, new, and planned versions of products that supplement the ERP lines, such as the FRx financial reporting application and Retail Management System (RMS). The chapter includes a timeline of recent and planned releases of MBS's supplemental products.

"New Packaging and Licensing for Dynamics ERP" describes the new packaging and licensing structure for the Dynamics product lines.

"Challenges Ahead" describes some of the risks and challenges that Microsoft and its customers and partners are likely to face as the company moves to rationalize and consolidate its overlapping product lines.

"Resources" lists past Directions on Microsoft articles and useful Web pages about particular products and versions. The Directions articles appeared in our monthly news analysis, Update, and are good starting points for further research on a product. The articles also list additional resources at Microsoft and elsewhere.

Information in Product Entries

The bulk of this report describes released or planned MBS products. For each product, we provide the following information:

Product description. The product's main function, target markets, and important edition information. Where possible, we also provide information about product adoption and points of integration with other Microsoft products.

Current version. The most recent version of the product (or its most recent service pack, if significant) and its release date. Also provided is a summary of the release's most important features.

Planned versions. A summary of new features in future versions. For future versions, feature sets are our interpretation of public statements by Microsoft; Microsoft has not committed to these feature sets and could change them at any time. In addition, we provide the most recent estimate of the product's release date based on publicly available information.