Microsoft Confirms Plans for Dynamics ERP in the Cloud, Reveals Dynamics AX 2012

At the keynote session of Convergence 2011 in Atlanta, Microsoft corporate vice president Kirill Tatarinov confirmed the company's plans to provide Dynamics ERP cloud offerings in the next release of the various ERP products.  These plans, Tatarinov stressed, focus on bringing the partner and vendor ecosystem with them and utilizing other Microsoft cloud-based services and products.

"Whatever we do, we bring the partners with us," Tatarinov stressed to the audience of over 9,000 Convergence attendees.  A cloud ERP roadmap for Dynamics also relies on related technologies like advances in Windows Azure, SQL Azure, and Office 365, he reminded the audience.

While details were still extremely light, Microsoft made clear its desire to "help partners benefit from Dynamics cloud offerings" and announce the publication of  a Cloud Partner Profitiability Guide that spells out success factors and an execution road map, as well as selling points for moving customers to the cloud solutions as well.

"Microsoft is all in" on the cloud, CEO Steve Ballmer reminded the audience, and he stressed this time around that "all our products, every one" will have a future in the cloud.   He did not go into specifics, leaving the bulk of the announcement to Tatarinov.

Keynote attendees also got a first look at Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, which Microsoft is positioning as a more agile ERP solution and characterizing the competition, especially the legacy players, as "electronic concrete that has plagued the ERP industry for so long", according to Kirill Tatarinov."Customers want flexible yet cost-effective business applications that work the way they do instead of being forced to adapt to the software.

The public reveal of AX 2012 included new industry capabilities for financial, human resources, and operations management, mixed manufacturing modes, new graphical organizational charts,and more granular ...