The low-key launch of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3: Reviewing a year of news

Today, May 1, is the official launch date for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3. Considering the range of acquired and newly developed features, it's considered a huge update to be just an "R3" for an older release. But there is another major release - 'Rainier' - targeted (probably) for 2015, which is expected to focus more on fundamental architectural changes like public cloud deployment, new user interface models, and more device scenarios.

As a launch day, May 1 has been pretty quiet. No big announcements from Microsoft, and a relatively sparse bit of discussion on social media. But with the buildup over the last year through conferences, virtual launch events, acquisitions, blog posts, and more, Dynamics AX 2012 R3 has received plenty of attention, and rightfully so. AX 2012 R3 represents another big improvement over the initial AX 2012 release that most people now acknowledge caused pain for plenty of early adopters - and their partners - who struggled with upgrades and implementations. R2 fixed many of those foundational issues and added some long awaited features. Now R3 adds even more to broaden the capabilities of the product across its major industry focus areas.

Here's a look back at some of MSDynamicsWorld.com's own coverage of the build up to today's low key launch.

Last July, AX 2012 R3 was expected to be released in Q4 of calendar year 2013, with the next major release, codenamed "Rainier", due in Q4 of CY2014. Those dates obviously slipped, first to Q1 of 2014 for R3, and now to May 1. It caused only a few visible changes ...