Microsoft Dynamics ERP Cloud Announcement Expected at Convergence 2011

If you thought Microsoft's Convergence 2011 conference in Atlanta was going to be more of the same, think again. The software maker is expected to announce some big news - it's going to start offering Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions in the cloud within the next year. The first ERP solution Microsoft will move to cloud is Microsoft Dynamics NAV, according to partners who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Currently Microsoft offers hosted versions of Dynamics CRM Online, BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), and SharePoint as well as other applications.

"Microsoft will make an announcement at Convergence around NAV," said one partner, estimating that a launch is between six and twelve months away. "They're having issues. They need to make it scalable. They're trying to do the ‘click, try, buy' thing and you have to make that scalable."

"It makes sense realistically because Microsoft expects everything to end up in the cloud or on cloud technology in private data centers," said Robert Helm, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "Microsoft also expects that all of its applications have to behave well as cloud services and Microsoft also expects to be running all of its applications as cloud services sometime in the future. It's just a question as to which goes first and on what time frame."

Microsoft declined to comment, saying it did not respond to "rumor or speculation." News of the announcement was first reported by SearchITChannel.

Technical Challenges Remain

One partner sees that there are both scalability and front end challenges to a truly scalable cloud version of Dynamics NAV. "And with the scalability there are two parts ...