From Sparkle to Staid, Microsoft Pitches Analytics, Commerce, Workforce Improvements in Dynamics AX Retail Update

Events like last week's NRF BIG Show offer retail technology vendors the opportunity to show off their newest, shiniest products as well as their vision for the future. Microsoft is no exception, sponsoring the event once again and bringing along a range of partners.

Dynamics AX still has a prominent role to play in company's retail strategy, Microsoft representatives say, and this year's introduction of "Dynamics AX for Retail and Commerce" unveils the new Dynamics AX (a.k.a. "AX 7) to the retail market. It can be challenging to find the flash in enterprise software at an event that offers attendees a Wizard of Oz experience and new products like a 3D interactive vending machine display. But the AX team had the new and improved AX web client, Power BI and Azure machine learning to point to, as well as less shiny but still important improvements like the maturing AX commerce engine and cloud POS deployment.

"This year's [NRF show] felt like there was a real focus on ability to execute and less sparkly things, says Microsoft Dynamics global retail industry marketing director Duncan Taylor. He notes topics of discussion this year like data quality and analytics, visualization technology, and unified commerce as themes that resonated with event attendees - and that fit in with the Dynamics AX message at the event.

In an interview, Taylor explained more about a few of the Dynamics AX capabilities Microsoft talked about at the NRF BIG Show and how the product has evolved into a "Retail and Commerce" offering.

Advantages of the Dynamics AX commerce runtime

The commerce runtime is distinctly ...