Microsoft Officials at AXUG Summit 2008 Say They Expect AX “6” to Be Heavily Influenced By User Group

Now that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, sometimes referred to as AX 5, has been fully launched, and Microsoft has reached the 10,000 customer milestone for AX products, company officials have begun looking ahead to AX  "6".

"This group is an amazing source of input for us," Hal Howard, General Manager of ERP R&D, told the assembled membership gathered in Las Vegas for AXUG Summit 2008.

He credited AXUG input with helping establish the AX "6" goals of providing "world class financial management" and "business process excellence" to meet the demands of globalization, consolidation of organizations across countries, and changing tax reporting for various legal entities as well as across multiple business units.

In the meantime, Microsoft officials at the AXUG Summit 2008 are positioning the AX 2009 release as an overall success in its responsiveness to customer needs, saying they "got it right" in the eyes of the early adopters. In a keynote address to the AXUG Summit's General Session on Wednesday, Michael Strand, General Manager of Dynamics in the U.S. Western Region discussed the highlights of AX 2009 in terms of the substantial new features, industry capabilities, role centers, and customer care.

"Dynamics products are some of the highest value products that Microsoft makes," Strand reminded the assembled user group attendees. In addition to having reached the 10,000 customer milestone, with over 1000 partner offerings,  Microsoft Dynamics AX managers continue to monitor the partner community's vertical competencies, indicating a need to maintain the expertise that will result in successful customer outcomes as the industry-based feature sets grow larger and more integral, Strand said. 

With a message of "You talked, we listened," the Microsoft officials reviewed the improvements in AX 2009, including the 30 role centers, country-specific features, simplified compliance management, and an improved UI.  Customers have told them ...