The Future of Dynamics in the Cloud Highlights Day 2 of Decisions Spring 2010

Look for Microsoft's Azure to continue expanding its "Cloud" offerings. But don't expect Microsoft Dynamics ERP applications-AX, GP, NAV-to immediately become accessible via the Cloud themselves.

That was the message from ERP analyst, consultant, and writer Josh Greenbaum in a keynote address on a busy Day 2 of Decisions Spring 2010 on Thursday.

Azure offers a number of benefits for Dynamics users specifically, said Greenbaum, including as a hosting platform for Dynamics CRM, a deployment platform for new .NET applications, an integration platform, and a platform for new value-added on-demand applications.

"But Microsoft won't place AX, GP, and NAV in Azure...yet," he said. Instead, he predicted that Microsoft will "disconnect parts of GP and AX to be more cloud consumable."

Instead, he foresees a "hybridization" of services as key.  With Azure, Microsoft and other solution providers will offer a growing market of services in the cloud.  Some services already on Microsoft's radar include things like procurement, payment, credit authorization, supplier scorecarding, commerce services, identification management, and modeling. Some of these are already available today and others are in development or have at least been mentioned by Microsoft at various recent public events. "We can probably expect more announcements at PDC," he stated.

He also sees more companies developing so-called "private clouds."

In another talk, Bill Knapp, manager of the Microsoft channel for Accellos, pushed executives to collect the necessary data to get to world class standards of distribtution, in his talk, "Leverage Distribution Metrics to Impact Your Dynamics AX Environment".

Besides collecting all the necessary data for turns, fill rates ...