The Partner Perspective: Assessing the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Launch, Part 3: Making Sense of Cloud, ISV Plans

As planned, Microsoft released Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 on October 1. Dynamics NAV partners have reported positive responses from both existing customers who are already interested in upgrades as well as prospects.  The new licensing approach in NAV 2013 presents its own opportunities and challenges - both for partners to educate clients on the best decisions, as well as to figure out how it will impact their competitive position in the SMB market.

But a critical part of the SMB plan for Dynamics NAV that didn't come to fruition in the initial release was a more comprehensive vision of Microsoft's Azure hosting of Dynamics NAV.  More information is expected around the first quarter of calendar year 2013.  Another new change, brought along in part by the licensing updates, will be the licensing of  ISV solutions in NAV 2013, something partners say they will have to navigate carefully as they plan new solutions for clients.

"As of October first, Microsoft made a decision not to ship Azure bits," explained Greg Kaupp, CEO of Microsoft partner ArcherPoint LLC. "So Microsoft didn't ship anything in the public release to enable the solution to run on Azure, although it was included in the beta release. The reason Microsoft removed it-and I believe we won't see it until January-is because the Azure team is releasing what they're calling the Azure Virtual Machine in January. I think Microsoft evaluated it and decided that would be a better way to deploy NAV on Azure than the way they had articulated in pre-public ...