True Tales: Two Microsoft Dynamics AX Customers Share Lessons from AX 2012 Upgrades

What have the early adopters of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 learned from their upgrade experiences?  Microsoft offers plenty of technical guidance to minimize disruptions during an upgrade.  And ISVs have been working for well over a year at this point to make their solutions 2012-compatible.  But the changes to the AX 2012 architecture did not arrive without some complaints and misunderstandings, as we have learned since its release.  We talked with Dynamics AX solution owners at two firms who have had some of the earliest upgrade experiences, and they shared some interesting points about what they've learned throughout the process.

About 10 months ago, Paul Sems, Director of Information Technology at Vitamix, was all set to upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics AX 4 to Dynamics AX 2009. But his plans changed as soon as he saw all the cool new features and functionality in Dynamics AX 2012, not to mention the product's slick redesign.

"Initially we wanted it to take nine months but originally we were going to upgrade to AX 2009 then we changed our minds," Sems said. "And we figured we were going to have to train our users anyway so we [decided] to train them on what they're going to be able live on for a longer time. So that changed the time line."

In Nairobi, Kenya, George Ndicu, a Technical Analyst at World Vision, said his company is currently running two instances of Dynamics AX (AX 2009 and AX 2012) in two  different countries so the company can get "good real life experience" with the ...