Microsoft previews Dynamics GP 2013 SP3 'Big Rocks' at Airlift

In case you haven't looked up from your 1024x768 CRT monitor recently, the days of 24 to 36 month release cycles for enterprise software are coming to an end.  The market doesn't smile on on-premise software vendors that wait years to deliver new capabilities.  The Microsoft Dynamics GP team understands this and has embraced its own approach to agile planning that will allow the product to move to something closer to a six month cadence of new releases (both major versions like GP 14 and service packs). 

Microsoft program manager Chad Sogge explained that the team's agile development approach has made it easier to determine the right GP 2013 SP3 goals. The release is due in the first half of 2014 and the team is committing to delivering on four key capabilities, a.k.a. the "big rocks," that they revealed earlier this week - requisition, procurement, workflow, and identity management. Any other smaller or non-critical features and enhancements that can also be met in that time frame will ship as well. Others "pebbles" will be pushed back to a later release.

On Friday at the GP Technical Airlift, members of R&D management took attendees through each of the four main enhancements they plan to deliver in GP 2013 SP3. (For another take on what was presented, check out the Kuntz Consulting blog's