What Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central partners will take away from Directions North America 2018, Part 2

Microsoft has improved some key elements of Business Central, its next generation SMB ERP solution, in the last year. The SaaS offering is available in a growing range of international markets, the on-premises version has now launched, and the team has big plans to keep building the momentum in terms of partner readiness, technical capabilities, and market perception.

In part 1 of this review of the news shared by Microsoft at Directions North America 2018 we looked at two areas of most direct interest to partners – licensing and roadmap priorities. But there was much more up for discussion among the more than eight hundred fifty attendees at the San Diego event. Let's look at three more critical components of the Business Central value proposition that partners will be paying close attention to beyond the conference.

Common Data Service (CDS): Business Central team dips into the possibilities, but won't take the dive soon

CDS sits on the Business Central roadmap in perpetuity, but the path to CDS alignment is far from certain, at least in terms of timing. Microsoft representatives left no doubt that they consider CDS a key to the Microsoft business applications story, and that Business Central needs to be a part of that. But there remain very real technical challenges that both the CDS and Business Central teams will need to overcome before the story is worth telling.

At Directions, Microsoft R&D was able to show the first glimmers of the CDS opportunity, and the contrast in areas where older types of integrations live on.

For a bit of the past, Microsoft representatives explained ...