How AX.NET Extends a CIO's Integration Options

Recently I did an interview and technology preview on my blog about AX.NET, a new Microsoft Dynamics AX add-on offering. I was impressed with its capabilities for working with Dynamics AX business logic and objects from .NET and the possibilities it will offer to application developers who need to integrate with Dynamics AX.

In this post, I focused on the technical aspects of what AX.NET will offer customers and Microsoft partners. Here I want to raise the issue of how such possible offerings affect a CIO's decision-making process when considering Microsoft Dynamics AX, as well as the options that exist to help a given customer implement and extend its Dynamics AX investment.

So what does the AX.NET offering mean for a CIO who is considering Dynamics AX vs another ERP platform? Most important, this offering focuses in on the integration aspects of Dynamics AX. It is an enabling technology, which could be developed rather than purchased. However, the cost would be far more than allowing ProISV to offer its expert knowledge in this build vs. buy possibility.

For CIOs, AX.NET means that such tasks as integrating with the cloud, to other LOB (Line of Business) applications, B2C and B2B portals, legacy systems, and the enterprise service bus, just became easier. If the CIO's company already has a .Net investment, .Net technologies can be leveraged like LINQ, Entity Data Framework, Windows Azure, and more.

AX.NET is also being developed in a fashion that could offer performance scalability, in terms of how it can be referenced and used via services. Therefore, the actual entry point to AX, through the .Net BC only has to live where AX....