Where is the Microsoft Dynamics ERP Cloud Strategy Headed?

The Microsoft Dynamics ERP product team pushed two major releases - Dynamics GP 2013 and NAV 2013 - and one minor (but still pretty major) one, AX 2012 R2, in the final two months of 2012. For some ERP watchers, these releases  were more notable for what was missing - advances in a Microsoft-branded cloud ERP offering - than what these releases actually bring to the Dynamics product line in a range of other areas like pricing, user interface, architecture, and technology platform.

The lack of progress on cloud offerings in this round of Dynamics ERP product releases does not necessarily indicate a lack of interest on the part of Microsoft R&D.  But with no visible progress in 2012, the pressure builds in 2013 to show partners, influencers, prospects and competitors something interesting.  Competitors can continue to hammer at the Dynamics product line, especially in SMB, for its lack of a mature, Microsoft-branded cloud offering, perhaps even more so in the shadow of the company's massive investment in the Azure cloud platform.

Dynamics GP & NAV on Azure: The Current View

Dynamics GP and NAV will be the first of the Dynamics ERP products to touch Azure.  Indications so far point to an approach that uses Azure virtualization technology  to allow partners to host solutions on Microsoft's cloud infrastructure much like they would host them today on-premise or in a SaaS model at a partner-hosted data center.  One of the first public examples of such a deployment is the