Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, at the company’s first European-based Convergence conference that kicked off in Munich Nov. 6, is working hard to show that Microsoft is on top of the tech revolution—at least when it comes to offering its enterprise resource planning technology on demand.
During his keynote address on the first day of Convergence, typically an ERP-focused conference held in the United States, Gates announced that the Dynamics suite of applications is going live—as in Microsoft Live, the company’s answer to the on-demand movement.
Microsoft’s Live initiative is based on a future where desktop applications are augmented with add-on, online services.
While the company has announced a bevy of Live services (mostly in beta now) around its Office and Windows offerings, it’s taking smaller, almost-baby steps with its Dynamics suite of ERP software.
At closer look, the Nov. 6 announcement boils down to Microsoft providing a subscription model for its partners to host Microsoft’s ERP software.
The new licensing model—part of Microsoft’s Provider License Agreement program—will let Microsoft customers subscribe to a partner-hosted version of Dynamics separate suites—GP, NAV, SL or AX—on a monthly subscription basis.
The ERP hosted subscription offering fits in with a company-wide effort at Microsoft to on-demand just about everything under the roof: Microsoft’s operating system, database, SharePoint server, Office Exchange and Microsoft Live Communication Server.
But it’s stopping short of offering Dynamics on demand—at least for now.
Microsoft is in the midst of rewriting its four ERP suites into a single services-enabled code base which will be available under the Dynamics umbrella sometime in 2008.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been available as a hosted application since last March.
The on-demand, or Live version of CRM, is expected in the second quarter of 2007, and in North America initially.
Partners will have early access to the CRM Live services in the latter half of 2006.
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Gates Outlines Live Dynamics Vision.
