Convergence 2009 Recap: Microsoft’s Best Foot Forward Despite Slowdown

Convergence 2009 from New Orleans was perhaps remarkable only for its lack of rough edges.  The roughest edge, the general economic downturn, was reflected in both the lower attendance - under 7000 - and Microsoft's opportunistic messaging: be ‘dynamic' and don't waste a crisis. 

The other notable complaints came from the expo hall, where traffic seemed to be down.  "We saw much lighter traffic in the expo hall this year," said one vendor.  Some vendors cited the long distance between the dining area and expo hall as an issue for driving traffic to booths as a contributing factor in addition to the lower attendance.

But with a resilient Dynamics CRM business and solid progress in executing on the Dynamics product line vision communicated last year, Microsoft came to Convergence 2009 armed with plenty of good news in a bad economy.  Positive messages included good feedback on role-tailored user experience,  the AX 2009 and NAV 2009 roll out with customer references to back it up, Dynamics CRM Online growth, expansion of the EDS partnership, and successful  upgrade stories to tell.  And current planning and positioning on topics like AX 6, CRM 5 (a.k.a V.Next), and xRM is underway with a sense of logical progression into the future.  As Hal Howard said several months ago at the Dynamics User Group Summit in Las Vegas, communication with users is probably better than it has ever been and there are few surprises for Microsoft now in response to their current offerings. 

CRM is the good news.  Dynamics CRM is performing well relative to other Dynamics offerings in the current environment.  We heard the term "recession-proof" ...