Microsoft Dynamics AX Product Managers Balance Their Bets on Old and New, Reveal AX 2012 Timing

As Convergence 2011 activities ramped up today with the AXUG DayOne keynote session, Microsoft Dynamics AX product managers emphasized their desire to seek a balanced tone between the present benefits of the well-worn AX 2009 and the promising glow of the new release of AX 2012. The new version of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will be a major component of the main Convergence conference beginning tomorrow (Monday).

Related to AX 2012, the director of product management for Dynamics, Kees Hertogh, confirmed that a public beta of the new release will be offered in April and the general availability set for August 2011 will be formally announced this week. This general release date is consistent with earlier estimates of a third quarter launch.

Hertogh explained that AX 2012 will adhere to a stricter release schedule than AX 2009, with better synchronization of release of fixes and features.  Following the GA release, a second release is planned with 12 languages supported including some European countries and the BRIC countries.  And localizations will all be supported in a single instance of AX 2012 server, a first for the product.

"AX 2009 is an awesome release and customers are still going live on it, so you don't have to go to 2012 right away," Hertogh reminded the assembled audience of several hundred on Sunday.  He touted the current release's analyst accolades like the Gartner Magic Quadrant placement as well as the fact that AX 2009 is in "thousands" of customer sites, with more deployments than any previous version.

Customer readiness for AX 2012 requires updated software in the Microsoft technology stack.  These requirements include SQL Server for any customers still on Oracle, as support for Oracle databases ends with AX 2009.  The Oracle to SQL Server data migration assistant, which works with AX 3.0, 4.0, ...