At Fall Analyst Event, Microsoft gets positive response to Dynamics AX, CRM direction

Microsoft held its annual Fall Analyst Event in Seattle last week, bringing together industry analysts who cover Microsoft products, including Dynamics ERP (primarily AX) and CRM.  Judging by the Twitter traffic - we included several of our favorite tweets at the end of this artice - the event got overwhelmingly positive reviews, both for how it was run and for the information shared by Microsoft executives.  Positive sentiment seemed to focus around Microsoft's commitment to advancing its enterprise solution offering, as well as its ability to articulate both the rationale behind the current state of AX and CRM and the vision driving its product roadmap forward.

After the event, we caught up with Josh Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Application Consulting, to get his take on the event and find out if it changed his outlook on Microsoft's ERP offerings.

MSDW: What were you looking for going into this Fall Analyst Event?

Greenbaum: I wanted affirmation that Dynamics has a strategic direction going forward, given the reorg. The highlight was that [Microsoft EVP, marketing] Tami Reller and [Microsoft EVP, cloud and services group] Satya Nadella both spent an hour with us. That was a first. Neil Holloway and Kirill [Tatarinov] were there as usual, but to have 4 people  who report to Ballmer, that says a lot about where Dynamics is standing in the organization, lending air cover to indicate that it's a strategic part of the company's changes.

What changes of direction did you learn about on the ERP side that are most significant?