Microsoft Updates Dynamics NAV Roadmap Beyond NAV 2016, Demonstrates More Connected Future

Microsoft revealed at WPC 2015 that the next release of NAV, formerly codenamed "Corfu", will be NAV 2016. The major release will introduce several new capabilities that the NAV team had advised on in recent months like its "e-Everything" approach to documents automation and integration and new workflow capabilities.

Microsoft left partners with a slick demo that showed off what could be coming next in the evolution of Dynamics NAV - bringing NAV data and features more directly into line with workers' activities within Office 365.

There is more to the evolution of Dynamics NAV than just new features, Microsoft reminded NAV partners at WPC 2015. Managers explained that priorities are shifting in the Microsoft ecosystem toward an embrace of the larger Microsoft cloud for business. Some of these changes include:

• Greater adoption of the idea of "simplified NAV" for customers who want to buy and deploy a business solution as quickly as possible - like within minutes.
• A call for better focus on the "In Office 365 and On Azure" positioning by partners in sales opportunities
• The opportunity to make Power BI a real analytics option for SMBs, especially those companies spending many hours a week mining data and building reports manually
• The new Cloud Sure Step program, which will evolve the Road to Repeatability (R2R) program. The goal is to ease the transition to the cloud. More details will come at fall partner events, Microsoft said.

NAV 2016 will have some other important updates, including compatibility with Azure SQL, "native" integration with CRM Online, and an improved Windows ...