Cloud CRM, ERP, and the Cost of Doing Business

Microsoft recently let partners in on a Dynamics ERP cloud strategy update, discussing in more detail where their Dynamics product suite is headed over the next few years; short answer here is the Azure cloud, and for customers of all sizes. But the market is changing, with more virtualization options and more questions about service providers' long term commitments to connectivity across cloud solutions. Can Redmond's full-featured CRM/ERP option sustain its upward climb as the market goes through cloud growing pains?

The Plan

Microsoft still has big plans for Dynamics in the cloud, starting with its first cloud ERP delivery planned for the first half of 2013 with NAV 2013, which is slated to run on Windows Azure, though using virtualized SQL servers and Application Servers, not SQL Azure. Microsoft says it also has plans to make GP 2013 available on Azure with a similar approach to NAV at a later date.  GP will have the added benefit of the new release's flexibility in naming the Dynamics system database, making the hosting of multiple instances of GP easier. The GP 2013 web client is also still in its initial release, with several iterations expected over the next six to twelve months.

AX, however, might shape up to be Microsoft's showpiece for the cloud, though the next major version update won't roll out until 2014 or 2015. What's important about that next major release of AX is that it will release in the cloud before it shows up on-premise and come with a native HTML5-based Windows 8 interface; it ...