Summit Nashville 2017 Preview: Microsoft to share vision for purpose-built apps suited to Dynamics ERP & CRM users

Microsoft will meet its Dynamics customers at Summit Nashville 2017 next week (Oct. 10-13) with an updated leadership team that has refocused and refined its message around the business application lineup.

Dynamics GP and NAV, as well as the Dynamics 365 ERP and CRM product roadmaps remain a primary draw at Summit, along with opportunities to dive deep into current product capabilities, and Microsoft teams will be on hand to present over fifty sessions and keynotes. But the broader message to customers will emphasize Microsoft's ability to help companies embrace purpose-built apps that rely on Dynamics, but also transcend it. 

Summit Nashville 2017 attendees will notice that Microsoft continues to focus on accelerating its cloud technology, including Dynamics 365. But given the range of business applications that have matured over the last year, existing Dynamics customers should also see product positioning that is more inclusive and accessible.

"Our strategy has shifted away from large wholescale migration of monolithic apps to purpose-built apps that leverage the Microsoft platform, bringing in LinkedIn, Azure for intelligence, leveraging the broad partner ecosystem, and adapting to core platform to make it more useful," says Toby Bowers, a new director within the business solutions product marketing group led by Alysa Taylor.

As a senior director in Taylor's product marketing organization, Bowers takes on a role that had not existed previously in exactly the same form, he says. He and his team will, in his words, "partner with the individual product and engineering teams to support and enable the existing community of existing Dynamics customers and partners, as well as support our partner and field teams around the world in delivering ...