Orion Update: Microsoft Dynamics CRM major release planned for October 2013

Orion, the next major release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has a planned release date of October 2013, according to information Microsoft is sharing with its partners as it ramps up readiness activities.

A slide in a recent presentation to Microsoft partners, shared on Twitter, also reveals that the Dynamics CRM Online roadmap now has a Q1 release in 2014 called "Mira" and a Q2 2014 release "Leo", which had been previously identified. Microsoft has not yet confirmed these plans publicly.

According to the information being shared with partners, on-premise Dynamics CRM customers can expect a new annual release cadence starting with Orion, as well as Update Rollups delivered every 12 weeks.  Recent update rollups for Dynamics CRM 2011 have caused some headaches due to technical issues, delays, and a perceived lack of communication from the Dynamics CRM team when problems arose.  Dynamics CRM CVP Bob Stutz has said in recent statements that his team intends to improve the update rollup process for on-premise customers by better managing how bug fixes and enhancements are each released.

For on-premise customers, the Orion release will introduce the same features that  CRM Online users got with the December 2012 Service Update, a.k.a. Polaris, which was released in January 2013. These features include the new "Flow" user ...