Dynamics AX 6 Will Sport Major Gains in User Interface, Exploit Cloud Opportunities, Says Microsoft’s Ehrenberg

For all the huge changes occurring in the ERP environment, including cloud computing and extended development capabilities, Microsoft is focusing major efforts for Dynamics AX 6 on improving the AX user experience

In a new interview with Dynamics AX technical expert and blogger Brandon George of Sunrise Consulting, Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mike Ehrenberg expanded on his recent blog post about  his vision for Microsoft Dynamics and spoke about a range of forward-looking topics on Dynamics AX, including the user experience, business intelligence, cloud computing, service oriented architecture, and the introduction of new development capabilities with the improved integration of SQL Server Modeling and Windows Workflow Foundation.

The picture that forms, while staying long on vision and relatively short on details, is that of Dynamics AX (and presumably all Dynamics ERP products) pushing forward on usability, while playing the role of strategic consumer of Microsoft's other enterprise and development tools.  Whether it is the future direction of business intelligence, workflow, database, cloud computing, modular architecture, or technical frameworks, Ehrenberg expresses a vision for Dynamics AX that appears ever more harmonious within the Microsoft product line in general. 

On the topic of the user experience, he said, "Task Pages are already a concept in the RoleTailored experience. Today, they are highly consistent to drive the benefits of user familiarity. The concept in the white paper focuses on the development of highly visual task pages defined for specific tasks - the particular example shows the power of a heat map display of warehouse activity laid out to show activity based on physical location in a warehouse. The visualization designed specifically for this task immediately highlights for the warehouse manager where the placement ...