Just Introduced in the Netherlands, Dynamics Entrepreneur Looks Set for 2008 U.S. Launch

The way Jeff Raikes, the head of Microsoft's Business Solutions, phrases it, Dynamics Entrepreneur is "a new offering for small businesses that moves beyond financials, and also automates the core business processes."

In the Dynamics scheme of things, it would be a starter package, enabling smaller companies to "move up into the broader Dynamics product line as your companies grow, so that you do not outgrow what you can do with the software." The next step up for a user of Entrepreneur would be Dynamics NAV, according to the Microsoft web site describing Entrepreneur.

Right now, the product is only available in the Netherlands, which underscores the importance of that area for testing and launching Microsoft products. While no official U.S. launch date has been set, industry gossip and the fact that Microsoft is talking about Entrepreneur as much as it is all suggest a 2008 launch.

The Microsoft Entrepreneur web site indicates that Entrepreneur will be focused not only on financials, but purchasing/inventory and sales/marketing. Word out of the Convergence conference in Copenhagen is that Entrepreneur will support up to five concurrent users at something slightly in excess of $1,000 per seat.

One of the big unanswered questions is just how it will be distributed via Microsoft's system of re-sellers--to what extent it will use existing re-sellers and whether it might establish a new network. The small-business market is a huge but highly diverse market that has long tantalized major corporations like Microsoft. The need for appropriately targeted software products is huge, but because the companies go through a number of major changes as they grow, it's difficult to ...