A new entry-level business management package could help small European companies track finances and manage vendors and customers. Dynamics Entrepreneur Solution is Microsoft's latest foray into financial software for small businesses, and it is based on Dynamics NAV, one of the company's four enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. Entrepreneur Solution will initially be available in Europe, putting it on a collision course with products from Sage, a leading vendor of business management applications in Europe. Eventually, the product will be available in other regions and could compete with similar Microsoft products, such as Accounting Professional and Small Business Financials.

What Is Entrepreneur Solution?

Dynamics Entrepreneur Solution is a business management application that will target companies with fewer than 50 employees and will support up to five users. The product is based on the Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) ERP application, one of four ERP applications marketed under the Dynamics brand by Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS). NAV is aimed at midsize businesses, is sold globally, and has a strong customer base among distributors and manufacturers in Europe. As of early 2007, the product had more than 50,000 customers.

Entrepreneur Solution provides basic financial accounting capabilities along with features for sales, marketing, and purchasing and vendor management, including the following:

• Support for budget tracking and accounting in multiple currencies, a key feature for many European companies
• Capabilities to help small manufacturers manage and track quotes, orders, invoices, and credit among multiple vendors
• Tracking and analysis of customer purchases, orders, and credit.

The product's promise of simplified setup and easy-to-use business management features—it will sport the same Outlook-style interface as its full-featured sibling—could attract the attention of small European customers using spreadsheets or personal finance software to manage their businesses today. Furthermore, Entrepreneur Solution's promise of a straightforward growth path to the Dynamics product line could offer an attractive alternative to Sage, which offers a large and confusing array of products, while the product's relatively low price could give it an edge on SAP's BusinessOne, which is considerably more expensive.

Opportunity in Europe, Overlap in United States

Introduction of Entrepreneur Solution will plug a gap in Microsoft's business applications strategy in Europe, where the company sees an opportunity to attract new customers to its Dynamics line and consolidate a market that remains largely fragmented. Unlike the market in North America, where Intuit is the clear leader in business applications for small companies, no European vendor has a dominant position. Microsoft has elected to tap that opportunity by slimming down the Dynamics NAV application rather than by localizing the less expensive and more basic Office Accounting 2007 product, which is available only in English and sold only in the United States, or Small Business Financials (SBF), the entry-level edition of Dynamics GP. (SBF is available in English in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean region.)

Although Entrepreneur Solution will be sold initially in Europe, Microsoft said it intends to make the product available in other regions. As its reach expands to include North America, the product will bump into Office Accounting 2007 and SBF. The company has not said how it will position Entrepreneur Solution alongside Office Accounting and SBF in North America, but it has not indicated that it will discontinue either of those products (although neither appears to have gained a large following to date).

Availability, Pricing, and Resources

Entrepreneur Solution will be available in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom in Sept. 2007. Although Microsoft has said it will make the product available globally, it has not provided a timeline for other countries. Entrepreneur Solution will cost €795 per user (about US$1,000) and support up to five users. If additional users are required, customers must step up to the full Dynamics NAV product.

More information about Entrepreneur Solution is at www.microsoft.com/dynamics/entrepreneursolution/default.mspx.