Microsoft recently held its annual “Convergence” conference to present its business application strategy and discuss upcoming changes and enhancements to its business solutions, specifically the Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM product lines (AX, CRM, GP, NAV, POS, RMS, SL). Key announcements included product roadmap updates, new product features, new partnerships and an updated Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) division strategy (see Table 1 for application-specific highlights).

Experience the User Experience

A significant amount of time was spent at the conference discussing enhancements to the user interface across all Microsoft Dynamics applications, to promote a more consistent user experience (dubbed, “UX”). The Dynamics line is continuing enhancement of the applications around role-based user interfaces to produce what Microsoft is calling a “role tailored” user experience. The applications are inheriting a very familiar Outlook user interface style, the best example of which is Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4. A common design methodology, called “Feel IT,” has been adopted across the entire Dynamics line and a formal customer feedback community has been created called “Microsoft Connect.” The user and role-based redesign is also being extended to improve integration across the products themselves.