At Directions EMEA 2017, partners seek clarity from Microsoft on Dynamics 365 Tenerife, NAV plans

As the clock ticks down to the start of Directions EMEA 2017, which runs from Oct. 4-6 in Madrid, the chairman of the event, is hoping Microsoft will provide attendees with an update regarding the recent announcements and discussions since the Directions North America conference in Orlando.

After Directions North America 2017, which ran from Sept. 17-20, some partners were unhappy and uncertain about news of a delayed rollout of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Tenerife and Microsoft's unexpected go-to-market plans. But more recent updates have suggested that a NAV 2018 on-premise release will still arrive in this calendar year, before the SaaS Tenerife launch. And some of the most un-popular plans floated at Directions North America, like the transition to only white-label offerings, could be loosened.

Christian Sega, CEO at the Hamburg, Germany-based agiles Group and chairman of Directions EMEA, the community event focusing on SMB partners, is one of those partners who expects better answers.

"I was in Orlando and it was the first time in 10 years or longer that I was really uncertain about the messaging of Microsoft executives," Sega says.

Currently, the entire channel is somewhat concerned about the future of Dynamics NAV, according to Sega. The channel also knows from recent communications that the concept of Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition and Business Edition is gone.

"We all want to know how [these elements] fits together with the three development platforms: the ...