Why Doesn’t Microsoft Want Dynamics NAV Customers to Hear from User Group Leader?

Erik Ernst has an impressive resume. He founded the Microsoft Dynamics User Group twelve years ago, and it now has more than 22,000 members. He has been involved for 15 years in support, training, consulting on Microsoft Dynamics NAV. In 2004, he received Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for Microsoft Navision. "For years, I have been working with large international multi-site/multi-country implementations, and with very good results and many happy users," he says on his blog.

But when he wanted to speak at Convergence 2007 in Copenhagen in late October about Dynamics NAV, he says in a posting on his blog that he couldn't get an invite. He cites two reasons as to "why I would never be selected to present my customer case."

1. He says Microsoft doesn't care for his "one database" strategy-having "all localizations in one database." He says Microsoft argues that having a separate database for each country lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Ernst claims, "I can easily prove that this is NOT the case!"

In his view, "we are creating exactly what we need for our company to apply to the local legal requirements, and nothing more, whereas the official localizations by Microsoft have the target that they must support all types of businesses in the country." As a result, Microsoft "often creates a lot of localizations that we do not need in our business."

2. The second reason is more economically ...