Preparing for Dynamics 365 Business Central: Three perspectives on the future of Microsoft SMB ERP

Following the general availability milestone for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dynamics ERP veterans and Microsoft MVPs AJ Ansari of InterDyn BMI, Rod O'Connor of BriWare Solutions, and Mark Polino of FastPath, joined MSDW editor Jason Gumpert to discuss the details and the reaction thus far.

Reflecting on the end of NAV

After the initial announcement of the new brand name for the previously code-named Tenerife, the Dynamics community lit up with debate and candid opinions. Ansari said that, along with other people involved in the Dynamics NAV ecosystem, he hoped for some continuation of the brand.

"We knew that by later this year or sometime in 2019, Dynamics NAV as we knew it would go away and we would end up with this one collective product, with SaaS, and on-prem offerings," he said. Beyond nostalgia, he added that the rebrand raises some important questions about whether the naming is too generic and whether it will be recognizable among customers.

O'Connor says that he was glad that Microsoft kept the release within the Dynamics 365 brand, because NAV is no more descriptive than Business Central. He worried, initially, that Microsoft would eliminate the brand. He suspects that customers working with Office 365, will be more inclined to deal with a 365 branded product.

Battling uncertainty

The new simplicity seemed to resonate with the panel. Ansari described the previous branding of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Business edition as unnecessarily wordy and confusing for prospective buyers who would mix it up with the Enterprise edition. According ...