Dynamics Roadmap Updated at Convergence

The Dynamics products will all receive updates in 2012 to take advantage of cloud and mobile technologies and fill gaps that Microsoft sees in the enterprise business applications market. Release plans announced at the Dynamics Convergence conference in Mar. 2012 show Microsoft pursuing a stable strategy for its enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) product lines, focusing enterprise efforts on Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX while bringing Dynamics NAV and other ERP products for small and midsize organizations onto its cloud platform.

Microsoft offers one CRM product, Dynamics CRM, and four ERP products, Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP, and Dynamics SL. Release plans for all five products were updated at Convergence. (See the illustration “Dynamics Roadmap Overview“.)

Dynamics CRM Connects to Mobile Devices, Social Networks, and Office 15

The Dynamics CRM software and online service manage sales, customer service, and marketing processes and provide an application platform for other processes, such as logistics. At the conference, Microsoft announced that Dynamics CRM had reached 2.5 million users and 30,000 customers, compared to 1.4 million users and 24,000 customers as of Dec. 2010. Microsoft’s CRM business has shifted toward the cloud: 60% of new customers opt for the Microsoft-hosted Dynamics CRM Online service rather than deploy the software on-premises.