Retail Realm 2016: Microsoft Touts Benefits of New Dynamics AX on Azure in Changing Retail Environment

Microsoft is mapping out the road ahead for Dynamics AX in the retail industry this week at Retail Realm 2016 in Las Vegas.

On Monday, most of the about 300 conference attendees packed the keynote speech by Microsoft's Balaji Balasubramanian, principal group program manager for Dynamics Retail, to listen to him map out the product vision and strategy of the new AX (aka AX 7) in the context of retail.

The new Dynamics AX, which was introduced earlier this year, allows users to utilize AX through the Microsoft Azure cloud. This differs from AX 2012, which can run on-premise, through hosting providers, or via public cloud IaaS services like Azure. With the new AX, Microsoft completely handles all elements of the public cloud deployment.

And Balasubramanian pointed out that attitudes toward the cloud have changed as well. "Fifty-two percent of organizations are confident that cloud apps are as secure as premise-based apps. That's up from 42 percent a year ago," he noted.

As of now, AX 7 users do not have the option of deploying their solution on premises. That will change with a future release of AX 7 and is dependent on the availability of Azure Stack Technology, which has been delayed to at least mid-2017.

Tony Winters, director of quality assurance for Retail Realm, praised Microsoft's innovation with the new AX, including upcoming updates like greater use of ...