Approaching the New Microsoft Dynamics AX on Azure: What Will Matter to Customers?

One of the more challenging discussions partners will have around the new Microsoft Dynamics AX, which is now open for public preview, may be the one where they pinpoint the most compelling improvements that will be relevant for any one organization.

Evangelizing the glory of cloud ERP will only get you so far today - while some CIOs are true believers, it may still get you escorted out of some offices. Microsoft makes a strong case for many of the things that the new Dynamics AX will do better than past versions, from data migration to user adoption to individual and team productivity, as well as reporting, system performance, and reliability. The new version is well aligned with many of the latest capabilities of Azure, from infrastructure to integration services to database to security to analytics and Internet of Things. But it is also a new creature that will need to serve a world in which many organizations still can't make the case for core business processes running in the cloud.

At Convergence 2015 EMEA, Microsoft presented a range of ways in which the new release can show off its cloud credibility, from architecture to telemetry and support to its connection to Azure R&D innovation. And with the public preview, partners can now begin spinning up non-production instances for a broader range of prospects and current AX customers. The move will start adding more diversity to the tenants of the cloud service, allowing both Microsoft, partners, and end users to see for themselves what the new AX really deliver across a broader set of functional and technical scenarios.

Let's look at five areas Microsoft has highlighted about the importance of its cloud-first approach ...