Dynamics 365 Enterprise ERP go-lives on Azure are accelerating, says Microsoft

The pace at which customers of Microsoft's enterprise cloud ERP offering, Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition (D365FOE) go live has accelerated in recent months from five or fewer customers per week up to approximately twelve per week, officials reported this week at Inspire 2017.

Dynamics 365 Enterprise ERP, formerly known as Dynamics AX, must be sold and delivered in a way that is responsive to market demand for shorter, faster implementations, Microsoft has advised partners. And the company believes that it can work with partners to continue to change minds on the value of Azure-based deployments, even as Microsoft prepares to launch the new Local Business Data (on-premise) deployment model and continues preparing their "cloud plus edge" hybrid options for the product.

So far, the majority of demand for D365FOE has come from new customers, not upgrades, said Microsoft Dynamics senior product marketing manager Winston Hait, who presented on the future of the solution at Inspire 2017. He and product manager John Bergman covered the high-level updates available in the July release of D365FOE including mobile and reporting improvements, improved upgrade and migration tools, and updates in areas including retail and manufacturing/supply chain.

With the majority of existing customers still on AX 2009 or AX 2012 - split almost evenly between the two versions - Microsoft is asking partners to work with them to continue to push the case for cloud upgrades and migrations when the time is right. Microsoft has reworked its TCO calculator tool for D365FOE based on input and validation from multiple resellers. With updated pricing and a range of new inputs, Microsoft believes the tool will give customers a more accurate view of their real on-premise ...