Silverlight UI for Microsoft Dynamics GP 12 is Key for Cloud Credibility, Microsoft Believes

The Dynamics GP roadmap now includes a major release that is making a serious push for web-readiness. In GP ‘12', expected sometime in 2012, the Dynamics GP team will unveil a new web client - demonstrated at Convergence 2011 - that will be able to transform all of the GP rich client's interfaces on the fly to a functional Internet Explorer and Silverlight-based display and add newer user interface elements like tabs and action panes.

"A large portion of that release will be dedicated to getting us to the cloud," says Errol Schoenfish, the director of product management for Dynamics GP.  "It's pretty astounding what our development team has been able to do. This was a massive task and ISVs are over the moon about it."

The "classic" client for Dynamics GP does not go away in the next release.  It can be used in parallel with the web client, and, in fact, Microsoft is really only positioning the web client for two main groups -customers on hosted Dynamics GP solutions from partners (they are making no claim yet that Microsoft will host its own Dynamics GP cloud offering), and for remote workers who currently access Dynamics GP's client through Citrix or terminal services.

"One cool thing about [the web client] is that it's an on the fly conversion," says Schoenfish.  With around 10,000 forms in GP, he adds, a slower or less dynamic approach would not have been practical.  And likewise, for ISVs with add-on solutions built into the current Dynamics GP client interface, this approach is good news since ...