Here Comes the iPad for Microsoft Dynamics AX: More Microsoft Users Seeking Sales and Demo Applets

If user responses at the Dynamics AX User Group Summit 2010 are any indication the Apple iPad is taking the Microsoft Dynamics universe by storm.

In a presentation on "Dynamics AX and the iPad", nearly half of the 60 attendees at the demonstration by Sunrise Technologies senior consultant Brandon George said they are using the iPad to access or develop applets that enable the users to carry out functions within AX. Sunrise's president, John Pence, said after the presentation that about half of the Dynamics AX partner's clients are either using or in the process of developing applets for the iPad.

George's demonstration was of an applet he developed, which he called "axPad". It enables sales people to locate on a map where customers are located, and to call up customer addresses, along with open orders for each customer. He developed the applet in Objective C, and also used Xcode IDF. "There were over 6,000lines of code, mostely on the iPad."

"This is strictly an R&D project for us," said Pence. "But it (the iPad) is barely six months old, and the uptake is amazing." Companies are using the iPad to provide sales people with access to key data, as well as to demonstrate to customers via photos and graphics new products...and to take orders, he said. It could also be used by sales people to access inventories and other key data on the run.

George  said the development process took him about 80 hours "on the learning curve to get to this point." Now that he knows the process, he says a new app would probably take him about 35 hours to develop.

He noted that the app he developed uses products and capabilities from the four ...