However, hardly anyone's heart should be crying for Microsoft. As the old adage says, "still water runs deep" , and Microsoft has at least used the Duet and Snap experience to bide time to come up with an even more encompassing solution. Before that, the giant had to conduct some serious soul-searching, such as whether to conclude "Project Green", which sought synergy across its ERP product lines.. Considering this hindsight, it is no longer that important to know whether Microsoft merely toyed with the product convergence idea or if it was the wishful thinking of the news-hungry press and eager analysts (some of which are now gloating about the idea's abandonment). Most likely, the temptation was there (who, after all, wouldn't be tempted to deal with only one product line, as opposed to four?), but a deeper analysis of acquired products has likely caused Microsoft to conclude that each product line has some distinctive technical and functional aspects. This, in conjunction with the partner ecosystem, would make doing anything injudiciously and precipitously (such as imposing unfamiliar tools and technologies) result in the alienation of the existing customers and partners.
But, Microsoft certainly did not panic, and has meanwhile rather spent time on figuring out how it can parlay its desktop supremacy (with an estimated 400 million Office users worldwide) into attracting enterprise applications users, and possibly changing some enterprise applications paradigms. Microsoft operating systems and desktop products have traditionally defined the user experience for most types of applications (with some challenges coming from the simplicity and intuitiveness of Web browser and portals). But, from the vendor's perspective, there is much more to Office integration than the several simple scenarios enabled by Duet and Snap. As Office evolves into a system that supports deeper and contextual business intelligence (BI), workflow, search, document management, and enhanced collaboration through products like Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft has come up with a composite architecture that quite exceeds the one of Duet. It builds on the long-espoused idea of providing users with more integrated and contextual working environment (see What Do Users Want and Need? ). Perhaps the best example is the successful Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 product that features native Outlook UI and its accompanying, instantly familiar experience. Indeed, anyone who wants to see what comprehensive integration between a business management application and Office looks like, should check out the user experience of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, where the entire application "lives inside" of Microsoft Outlook. For more information, see War Looms in the On-demand CRM Market (and Beyond)—But Will You Profit from It?.
This would be the best embodiment of Microsoft's vision of connecting people across a company with the business processes and information they need to be successful within the context of the productivity tools they use every day. The idea is now is to determine how to extend similar capabilities and the same (or at least a similar) "look-and-feel" across all the ERP product lines. There is at least some virtual convergence of diverse product lines (if not necessarily the convergence at the server side). To that end, Microsoft touts "simplification" and "minimalism" as the guiding principles of evolving its applications and making them modern, in terms of user experience, runtime infrastructure, and design time tools. On the user experience side, the vendor has tailored the user experience to roles (thereby trying to reduce the user experience footprint per-role, as will be described later on). On the runtime infrastructure side, it has added several Microsoft technologies, ranging from reporting via analysis to portal capabilities. By doing so, the Microsoft Dynamics team has been able to get rid of a bunch of arcane code in its existing runtime environments that had duplicative middleware, since all Dynamics ERP products' portal presentation layers are now native in SharePoint, with reporting being in native Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). The idea behind this was not just a simple case of substitution, but actually a reduction in code or abstractions that Microsoft had to maintain, and also the democratization of access to the data and business logic.
When it comes to design time, Microsoft Dynamics developers have been religious about keeping the development metadata driven. This was to mitigate the traditional difficulties within competitive development environments when it comes to enabling the extensibility of their products (e.g., adding entities, adding a couple of fields, relating these relationships, adding some form, writing some logic, exposing the underlying business logic as a Web service, creating a Really Simple Syndication [RSS] feed out of it, etc). Conversely, Microsoft touts its metadata driven modeling tools as a key to how to achieve and maintain simplicity (which is the key driver for the partners' productivity too) for the most complex of customization tasks, while still adding new runtime capability like workflows, process, role-tailored user experience, etc.
Such new easily deployed and reasonably priced packages are aimed at helping customers improve the situation they face today. On average 85 percent of employees do not have direct access to critical information, such as data on customers, costs, orders, and schedules, contained in their ERP application. Microsoft argues that many users want to work exclusively in one Office environment or the other, rather than in pesky proprietary ERP screens. To that end, in March 2007, during the Microsoft Convergence 2007 user conference, Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of a new offering that should help customers further extend the power, insights, and process control of their Microsoft Dynamics ERP applications to most of their employees via familiar business productivity tools in the Microsoft Office system. The new Office-based client is intended to make the ERP capabilities available to a vast majority of employees, in comparison to customarily only extending this to those employees who have purchased ERP seats.
This new package, was somewhat awkwardly named (compared to Duet) as Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and SharePoint Server (MOSS), and contains a collection of up to 12 self-service applications that are built into the Microsoft Office release and SharePoint products and technologies. It also has a license for the recently released Office SharePoint Server 2007. These applications, such as Time and Attendance for Microsoft Dynamics GP, Project Time and Expense for Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics Snap Business Data Lookup for Microsoft Dynamics AX, and FRx WebPort and DrillDown Viewer, are expected to simplify access to business information and help connect employees more closely with their company's business processes. Also included in this new offering are licensing rights for customers or industry partners to build their own Office Business Applications (OBA), a new category of programs where Microsoft Office becomes the front-end for accessing the back-end ERP functionality of Microsoft Dynamics. For more information, see Microsoft's Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications: Somewhat Explained.
This new package has been priced to facilitate companywide deployment, as the price for Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and Windows SharePoint Services is $195 (USD) per user and Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and SharePoint Server is $395 (USD) per user. Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office is available to Microsoft Dynamics Business Ready Licensing Advanced Management customers for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 and Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.
But, Microsoft certainly did not panic, and has meanwhile rather spent time on figuring out how it can parlay its desktop supremacy (with an estimated 400 million Office users worldwide) into attracting enterprise applications users, and possibly changing some enterprise applications paradigms. Microsoft operating systems and desktop products have traditionally defined the user experience for most types of applications (with some challenges coming from the simplicity and intuitiveness of Web browser and portals). But, from the vendor's perspective, there is much more to Office integration than the several simple scenarios enabled by Duet and Snap. As Office evolves into a system that supports deeper and contextual business intelligence (BI), workflow, search, document management, and enhanced collaboration through products like Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft has come up with a composite architecture that quite exceeds the one of Duet. It builds on the long-espoused idea of providing users with more integrated and contextual working environment (see What Do Users Want and Need? ). Perhaps the best example is the successful Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 product that features native Outlook UI and its accompanying, instantly familiar experience. Indeed, anyone who wants to see what comprehensive integration between a business management application and Office looks like, should check out the user experience of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, where the entire application "lives inside" of Microsoft Outlook. For more information, see War Looms in the On-demand CRM Market (and Beyond)—But Will You Profit from It?.
This would be the best embodiment of Microsoft's vision of connecting people across a company with the business processes and information they need to be successful within the context of the productivity tools they use every day. The idea is now is to determine how to extend similar capabilities and the same (or at least a similar) "look-and-feel" across all the ERP product lines. There is at least some virtual convergence of diverse product lines (if not necessarily the convergence at the server side). To that end, Microsoft touts "simplification" and "minimalism" as the guiding principles of evolving its applications and making them modern, in terms of user experience, runtime infrastructure, and design time tools. On the user experience side, the vendor has tailored the user experience to roles (thereby trying to reduce the user experience footprint per-role, as will be described later on). On the runtime infrastructure side, it has added several Microsoft technologies, ranging from reporting via analysis to portal capabilities. By doing so, the Microsoft Dynamics team has been able to get rid of a bunch of arcane code in its existing runtime environments that had duplicative middleware, since all Dynamics ERP products' portal presentation layers are now native in SharePoint, with reporting being in native Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). The idea behind this was not just a simple case of substitution, but actually a reduction in code or abstractions that Microsoft had to maintain, and also the democratization of access to the data and business logic.
When it comes to design time, Microsoft Dynamics developers have been religious about keeping the development metadata driven. This was to mitigate the traditional difficulties within competitive development environments when it comes to enabling the extensibility of their products (e.g., adding entities, adding a couple of fields, relating these relationships, adding some form, writing some logic, exposing the underlying business logic as a Web service, creating a Really Simple Syndication [RSS] feed out of it, etc). Conversely, Microsoft touts its metadata driven modeling tools as a key to how to achieve and maintain simplicity (which is the key driver for the partners' productivity too) for the most complex of customization tasks, while still adding new runtime capability like workflows, process, role-tailored user experience, etc.
Such new easily deployed and reasonably priced packages are aimed at helping customers improve the situation they face today. On average 85 percent of employees do not have direct access to critical information, such as data on customers, costs, orders, and schedules, contained in their ERP application. Microsoft argues that many users want to work exclusively in one Office environment or the other, rather than in pesky proprietary ERP screens. To that end, in March 2007, during the Microsoft Convergence 2007 user conference, Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of a new offering that should help customers further extend the power, insights, and process control of their Microsoft Dynamics ERP applications to most of their employees via familiar business productivity tools in the Microsoft Office system. The new Office-based client is intended to make the ERP capabilities available to a vast majority of employees, in comparison to customarily only extending this to those employees who have purchased ERP seats.
This new package, was somewhat awkwardly named (compared to Duet) as Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and SharePoint Server (MOSS), and contains a collection of up to 12 self-service applications that are built into the Microsoft Office release and SharePoint products and technologies. It also has a license for the recently released Office SharePoint Server 2007. These applications, such as Time and Attendance for Microsoft Dynamics GP, Project Time and Expense for Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics Snap Business Data Lookup for Microsoft Dynamics AX, and FRx WebPort and DrillDown Viewer, are expected to simplify access to business information and help connect employees more closely with their company's business processes. Also included in this new offering are licensing rights for customers or industry partners to build their own Office Business Applications (OBA), a new category of programs where Microsoft Office becomes the front-end for accessing the back-end ERP functionality of Microsoft Dynamics. For more information, see Microsoft's Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications: Somewhat Explained.
This new package has been priced to facilitate companywide deployment, as the price for Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and Windows SharePoint Services is $195 (USD) per user and Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and SharePoint Server is $395 (USD) per user. Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office is available to Microsoft Dynamics Business Ready Licensing Advanced Management customers for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 and Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.
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