On Eve of Convergence 2010 Keynote, Microsoft Highlights Features, Tools of Dynamics GP 2010

At the GPUG DayONE event today in Atlanta, Microsoft officials highlighted additional details on tomorrow's public launch of GP 2010 at to users and partners at Convergence 2010. 

"We've worked for three years on this release and we've RTM'd it 1 day early," Principal Program Unit Manager Chad Sogge announced with a smile to the GPUG DayONE crowd.  Sogge gave a rundown of some of the highlights of the new release, including Office integration, more pre-built workflows on top of Work Flow Foundation, and the focus on SSRS for developing new reports.

Microsoft comes to Convergence with 7 live customers on GP 2010 before the official release, all of whom, according to Sogge, were upgraded from GP 10.  Sogge added that his team focused significant time on smoothing the upgrade paths from GP 9 and 10, and that at least one of the beta customers was able to do the upgrade in a single day. 

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) has become the preferred tool of new reports in GP 2010, marking a departure from the use of Report Writer.  "If you write a report in GP 2010, you should attempt first to create it in SSRS," Sogge told the gathered crowd of approximately 400.

Another new area was the meaningful integration of GP 2010 with instant messaging via Unified Communications (UC).  The GP team had struggled with valid use cases and the challenges of using instant messaging in an auditable accounting environment.  But Sogge acknowledged that Microsoft and other old-guard ERP developers face serious competition with the emergence of IM-based features in other accounting and ERP software suites. 

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