2009 Recap Convergence

Convergence 2009 from New Orleans was perhaps remarkable only for its lack of rough edges.  The roughest edge, the general economic downturn, was reflected in both the lower attendance – under 7000 – and Microsoft’s opportunistic messaging: be ‘dynamic’ and don’t waste a crisis. 

The other notable complaints came from the expo hall, where traffic seemed to be down.  “We saw much lighter traffic in the expo hall this year,” said one vendor.  Some vendors cited the long distance between the dining area and expo hall as an issue for driving traffic to booths as a contributing factor in addition to the lower attendance.

But with a resilient Dynamics CRM business and solid progress in executing on the Dynamics product line vision communicated last year, Microsoft came to Convergence 2009 armed with plenty of good news in a bad economy.  Positive messages included good feedback on role-tailored user experience,  the AX 2009 and NAV 2009 roll out with customer references to back it up, Dynamics CRM Online growth, expansion of the EDS partnership, and successful  upgrade stories to tell.  And current planning and positioning on topics like AX 6, CRM 5 (a.k.a V.Next), and xRM is underway with a sense of logical progression into the future.  

CRM is the good news.  Dynamics CRM is performing well relative to other Dynamics offerings in the current environment.  We heard the term “recession-proof” more than once at Convergence 2009.  Looking beyond the careful marketing messages, the other factors like the range of implementation options, Microsoft pedigree, and competitive positioning make it a strong CRM player.  Dynamics CRM has three well-defined implementation options today – on-premise, hosted, and on-demand – and Microsoft seems to be willing to maintain this range of options, letting partners guide customers where they may. 

Is xRM here to stay?  At present, the story of xRM is a little murky to the un-initiated – it is the definition of any application (built or still un-built) that can sit on top of the development platform also known as Dynamics CRM.   It must be a confusing sell for partners to some degree, too; the customer is buying Dynamics CRM but implementing something that could involve no customers, sales force, or even marketing.   What it will involve is custom development of a UI, business logic, reports, and more, with Dynamics CRM managing the business objects, the database persistence, error handling, and, presumably, the service layer needed to keep it all in sync. 

The connecting thread seems to be building of line of business (LOB) applications – dynamic multi-factor systems to manage people, programs, processes, resources, goals, etc.  Is that vague enough for you?  It is not clear how programs like the CRM Incubation Week, which promotes the building of Dynamics CRM-based apps without openly using the xRM terminology, are differentiated from this initiative.  Maybe the marketing department simply hasn’t reached that deep yet.  And it remains to be seen whether the xRM marketing strategy and technical capabilities will be able to keep pace with broadening range of products that the xRM label will be applied to.  If enough partners can ramp up and effectively re-use Dynamics CRM as a baseline and quickly roll out useful solutions, we may be hearing a lot more about xRM, and even seeing new items in the price list so that xRM projects don’t need to go through the confusion of buying something called “CRM”.

Consistent customer references.  This week’s conference included several of Microsoft’s reference customers touting a consistent message – successful upgrades to the latest software, successful partner relationships, and excitement over the latest features like Role Centers and Office integration.  They were quick to note the Microsoft brand strength in choosing a Dynamics-based solution in terms of trust in the company’s long term viability, its broad product line, and the ability to use Dynamics with other products like Windows Server, Outlook, Unified Communications, and SQL Server. 

Dashboards and integrated reporting.  Role centers and integrated reporting capabilities together will continue evolving to both entice existing customers to upgrade as well as to sell a friendlier story to prospects worried about adoption, customization, or business intelligence.  Of course, all role centers are not as easy as they may seem in a demo, but the story is nevertheless interesting and Microsoft has shown its determination to roll out this functionality in the ERP space.   

Customer care.  Microsoft has re-focused on ensuring that existing customers “take full advantage” of their software, maintenance, and training purchases, in the words of Kirill Tatarinov.  Of course, Microsoft’s drive is more than altruistic – engagement on training and maintenance services now will bolster renewals and keep existing customer engaged.  In the down economy, with new customer uptake slower overall then any software maker would want, caring for and up-selling existing customers will be key until economic conditions improve.

Planning for the light at the end of the tunnel.  Dynamics product management sees the post-recession world as more highly regulated and even more focused on streamlined process and reporting than before.  In the interim, development will progress toward demonstrating these capabilities across the Dynamics portfolio.  The Environmental Dashboard is here to stay and, according to Microsoft Dynamics ERP architect Mike Ehrenberg, they plan to go “further and deeper” to bring better process automation, visualization, and metrics for regulatory and KPI data.

See you next year. 

Updates on GP to CRM Integration, Integrated Reporting, Master Data Management

A new Dynamics CRM integration to Dynamics GP is available now and will pave the way for other CRM-to-ERP integrations developed by Microsoft in the future, including AX to CRM. 

The new integration is the first in some time to be built by Microsoft, arriving several releases after an older integration that was considered less than successful. “Customers gave us a lot of feedback that let us know we needed to take a different approach,” said Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mike Ehrenberg.  In developing the new integration capabilities for Dynamics CRM, GP was logical place to start because it has no built in CRM capabilities. 

Presently, customers wishing to integrate Dynamics CRM to a Dynamics ERP system have relied on third party solutions from vendors like Scribe, Solugenix and Celenia. 

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Integrated reporting tools are still a relatively new arrival in Dynamic product line.   Makingthe change from third party reporting to integrated, according to Ehrenberg, was no easy task. “We worked hard to develop integrated solutions based on SQL reporting and SQL Analytics Services.”

Integrated reports are taking into consideration 3 different concerns:

1)     BI as part of the solution -Typical BI reports in new Dynamics product releases like AX 2009 and NAV 2009 are pre-built to align with the role tailored experience.

2)     Data security and permission is modeled into the application so there no need to manage it separately in another layer or with additional logic built around database queries or result display.  “By having an integrated solution we give [customers] a better way to manage security and lower TCO,” said Ehrenberg.

3)     Simplified authoring environment.  “Top feedback is always that it is too hard to build reports,” says Ehrenberg.  For the simpler reports, the simplified authoring environment accessible from within the Dynamics tools allows developing and exposing reports to users.  For more sophisticated reports, SQL Reporting Services can be used to enhance simple reports or develop more sophisticated reports with more features and detailed control.

Existing reporting tools Forecaster and FRx will be coming back under control of Ehrenberg’s group as part of the re-distribution of responsibilities related to bringing the PerformancePoint services under SharePoint Server. 

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Master Data Management (MDM) is an active project within Microsoft with big implications for ERP and CRM.  Since the acquisition of Stratature in 2007, the work, as Ehrenberg describes it, has been in moving from an analytics perspective to a transactional MDM approach that can be applied to the ERP space to actually clean up data at the systems level and create the proper communications. There is no formal announcement but, according to Ehrenberg, “it will be a dramatically different solution when it comes out.  We are deeply involved in that space now.”

Commitment to Dynamics Product Line, Opportunities During Economic Slowdown

Presenting at the opening keynote of Convergence 2009, Kirill Tatarinov expressed Microsoft’s commitment to Dynamics products, the opportunities he sees to maximize the use of existing tools, and the desire to see attendees to use the macroeconomic crisis to their advantage in reshaping business processes with Dynamics.  

Less than 7000 attendees made the trip to Convergence 2009 in New Orleans, a number that Microsoft is trying to put in the best possible light given financial struggles and travel restrictions in place at many companies.   Microsoft touted customer success stories with real value statistics in testimonials.  Figures ranged from increased implementation speed to reduced training time to reduced IT expenses to shortened ROI cycle time to faster month-end close.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online March 2009 Service Update was announced at the keynote, which included a new SLA (99.9 percent uptime commitment), new features for simple Internet lead capture, and broader integration with Cloud services.  Tatarinov described Dynamics CRM as “recession proof” because even now “there is nothing more important than connecting with customers”.  Tatarinov also announced that EDS will offer a global hosting product for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, expanding the list of partner-based hosting opportunities in addition to on-premise and Dynamics CRM Online.  

Looking back on recent accomplishments in the Dynamics product line, the corporate vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions pointed to the role-tailored user experience as a major achievement of the last two years.  Demonstration of UI improvements included dynamically populated multi-dimensional search results, mobile applications for GP workflow processing, custom web interface for customer services (which they bluntly but seamlessly transitioned into a sales opportunity in Dynamics CRM) using one of the new Dynamics CRM Accelerators, warehouse management on a mobile device, and some flashy prototypes of Microsoft Surface applications integrating with Dynamics AX 2009 on the back end for warehouse management and after-market service.  The demo also included improved workflow development tools in Windows 7, including enhanced drag and drop process definition

One outcome of the global financial slowdown, according to Tatarinov, will be stronger government regulation and tighter compliance requirements–reporting changes that can be met best with newer software offerings.  In this light, Microsoft rolled out its Environmental Dashboard for better measurement of environmental impact within ERP.  It includes features like reporting on meter readers, measuring carbon footprint, and government reporting.  The Sure Step implementation package will also now include an environmental sustainability process.  Officials suggested that this is just the beginning of this offering–that they will likely go deeper on environmental sustainability in terms of process and metrics in the future.

Convergence 2009

What should attendees expect at Convergence 2009, beginning on Tuesday in New Orleans?Well, for one thing, it should be less crowded than last year’s event in Orlando. Microsoft observers generally expect a 20% to 30% decline in attendance from last year’s approximately 10,000. That would put attendance at 7,000 to 8,000 new week.

“My sense is that Convergence is going to be smaller and maybe a bit more
intimate this year,” says Mark Polino of I.B.I.S.

As for the likely high points.

Emphasis on “The Cloud.” According to Jeff Onesto of Advanced Systems Integration, “I don’t think anybody will argue that ‘Cloud Computing’ is where the next major battle will take place.  I believe with the current success of Dynamics CRM Live, the Windows Azure Platform will be highly discussed as well as Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), which consists of Exchange Online, Office Sharepoint Online, Office Communication Online and Office Live Meeting.”

Exploiting Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009. With all the hoopla at last year’s Convergence over AX 2009, observers expect the focus this year to be on helping customers get more from their investments, or to upgrade from previous versions. “ I don’t think this year you will see anything very ‘new’ about Dynamics AX,” says Brandon George of Sunrise Technologies Inc.  ”The road map will be updated, but I think this year’s focus will be more about helping customers get use out of their investments already made, and how Dynamics AX can fit into that with customers that are already Microsoft platform customers.”

Anticipating Microsoft Dynamics GP 11. Users of GP will, at this year’s Convergence, be seeking details of GP 11. “I think the buzz will come from anticipation of version 11 ( due out early next year),” says Polino. “There are some cool features coming and they will get the showcase. Early this year, I would have said Business Intelligence would get a big push and it still may, but the haphazard reorganization of Performance Point took some of the wind out of Microsoft’s BI sails.”

Don’t miss our extensive on-site coverage. And Dynamic Communities’ user groups will have blogs keeping track as well, at www.gpug.com, www.crmug.com, www.navug.com, andwww.axug.com.

Heroes Happen Here: Microsoft Server 2008 Launch Event

I didn’t get much done today. Rather than slaving away over a hot keyboard I went to the “Heroes Happen Here” Microsoft Launch Event.

I could say I went because I could, but that would only be a small part of it. Part of it’s because I work as a system administrator and it’s always good to keep up with what’s happening; and since Microsoft is the eight million pound gorilla of the software industry I have a vested interest in keeping up with them in particular.

Still that may not be enough of a reason to go to such an event, and while the swag is good  the biggest giveaway was Vista Ultimate and I already have that.

So, what was the point?

One big thing, from my perspective, is that Microsoft is taking a lesson from Linux and looking to compete directly. That’s not as strange a statement as it sounds. Server 2008 is bringing in ideas like Server Core, which allows you to install a basic server OS with no GUI for simple server tasks. It’s something people have been doing on Linux for years, but Microsoft hasn’t really had a product to compete in the same space.

Another change has to do with what they’re calling the PowerShell which is a new command line environment. They’re moving back to the idea that the command line should be more powerful than the GUI, and that the GUI should be a layer that sits on top of the actual commandlet. I’m impressed.

A lot of the other changes have to do with security. Server 2008 is both much more secure and more granular in that security than previous versions. I was very impressed with how tightly they can lock it down, while at the same time the part that I love as an administrator would terrify me as a user.

I found the event worthwhile, and I think many of you would too.

Reflections on Convergence 2008-Is Microsoft About to Become Warm and Cuddly on Us?

One of the more intriguing sessions at Convergence 2008 in Orlando was one led by Jakob Nielsen, who has the intriguing title, “Principal User Experience Manager” of Microsoft Dynamics.

He defined his mission as “to create a Microsoft Dynamics people love.” Then he raised this obvious question: “What makes people LOVE certain products?”

He said his group in Copenhagen has seven studies going on, involving some 300 to 400 people via surveys, focus groups, and “cognitive walkthroughs” to gain “a deep understanding of the people who use our software,” with particular emphasis on “emotional aspects.”

The simple fact that someone like Nielsen is doing what he’s doing, and was trotted out for an appearance before the media during the most important Dynamics gathering of the year, is striking because Microsoft isn’t known for letting itself become distracted by the emotions and feelings around software-that’s supposed to be Apple’s bailiwick. But in the context of the messages being put forth by senior Microsoft executives during this year’s Convergence, Nielsen’s presentation makes sense. There were really three points Microsoft executives hammered home about their priorities in evolving versions of Dynamics products:

1. Integration. Microsoft executives emphasized that they have given over much attention to enabling Dynamics programs to work together with other Microsoft products. According to the company’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, in his keynote address at Convergence, “We have been very focused in as a company from the Office side, from the SharePoint side, as well as from the Dynamics side, in filling in that white space in the middle. How do you connect people so that they can from their personal productivity environment look into what’s really going on inside the business, inside the business applications? How do you let people collaborate not just informally but how do you let people collaborate in a way that interfaces to the line of business systems? This invoice, we get a complaint about an invoice, how do you pull the invoice out of the system? How do you let people collaborate, e-mail it around, put it on a collaboration side, annotate it, and put it back? How does budgeting work? How does discussion of new pricing work? All of that somehow lives in this space for BI, for workflow, for ad hoc teamwork, between personal productivity and the apps platform. We think that by adding value in that white space, whether it’s from the Dynamics point of view or from the Office and SharePoint point of view, is the biggest source of new value-add that Microsoft can bring to the People-Ready Business.”
2. Role-tailored user experience. Growing out of the integration is the role-tailored user experience, said Ballmer, “adaptability and continuous optimization of the system; moving to what we call this role-tailored user interface, where we really think through who are the various people who need to use the line of business systems, and how do we project out what they need to do for analysis and teamwork and productivity individually?”
   Kirill Tatarinov, vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions, provided a demo of “the role of a credit collector. And that person gets exactly what they need to see in this role. And that person gets complete help and gets complete understanding on what she might be responsible for and how that experience will help her execute her task better.”
3. Usability. Another Microsoft executive, Kevin Scofield, general manager of Microsoft Research, said in a keynote address that his group’s role is “to work on data visualization,…we build interdisciplinary communities. It’s really a hybrid problem. It’s partly about design, and it’s partly about studying the user, and cognitive capabilities, how do people perceive things, how do people understand data and different kind of visualizations. So we built an interdisciplinary team of graphic designers, experimental psychologists, cognitive psychologists, in some cases sociologists and ethnographers, so we can understand the cultural aspects of looking at data and visualizations, as well, to try to put together a larger picture. And we build lots of test beds of different kinds of visualizations. And then we try them out with real people, and collect data about whether people get this, whether people don’t get this.

Whether or not you fully understand what he, Nielsen, and others are saying, the larger message may be that Microsoft is intent on leveraging many of its significant resources to entice would-be Dynamics users to come aboard, and encourage existing Dynamics users to upgrade more often than they may be inclined. Because in exchange, they’ll gain the reassurance of a familiar user environment. When you’re confronting the challenge of training hundreds of employees that is worth a lot.

Final Day thoughts of Convergence 2008

Kirill Tatarinov emphasized that no products are going away. He said specifically that if anybody heard that he wanted to know. The problem is not what gets said, it’s what gets done.

Tatarinov is a better motivational speaker than Satya Nadella was, and despite the accent, he’s clearer than Doug Burgum.

GP 11 won’t be out until 2010. That’s good news. There’s a lot of functionality in 10 for people to explore and giving folks a couple of years on a good solid release will be good for GP. The last couple of releases have been so fast that they’ve left people breathless. Don’t worry, there will be “feature packs”, service packs and other items to keep the product fresh.

It was clarified on Wednesday that all the products are getting “year” designators but GP and SL won’t have a year tacked on until they closer to release. So for now it’s GP11 but the final name will be GP 2010 or 2011 depending on the release date.

Once again, people were in search for a place to plug in their laptops. I think that Microsoft needs to research wireless power adapters to alleviate this problem for attendees.

GP 11 Sneak Peek…the Beginning of Report Writer’s End.

We got a little sneak peek of GP 11 today. Remember, GP 11 isn’t due until early 2010 so settle in with version 10 for a while.

But for those of you who can’t wait, GP 11 should provide even tighter office integration including a new Excel Report builder. If Smartlist Builder and Excel had a love child, it would be Excel Report Builder.

Also, they demoed native GP invoice creation via Microsoft Word. For all the new reporting features that have been added, GP has never moved core reporting functionality from Report Writer. They duplicated reports in SSRS or Excel but never tied anything other than report writer to the core reporting interface. This is a big deal and it marks the start of the end for Report Writer.

Convergence’s Green Initiative

One of the things that I noticed is pretty cool here at Convergence is their “Green Initiative”. In particular, every registered attendee received a Nalgene-ish reusable water bottle and there are water coolers EVERYWHERE for you to fill up. This takes the place of having free bottled water throughout the venue.

They say that going with this type of program is saving over 30,000 water bottles from being thrown out over the course of this week (and I believe it). Smart idea and a nice way to reduce how much trash an event of this size produces.

Some other Green Initiatives (from an “inside” Conference page):

• All attendees will be given a reusable water bottle to fill at water cooler stations throughout the Convention Center. Biodegradable cups will also be available at each water cooler station.
• The majority of conference-created collateral will be printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper (processed chlorine-free) and printed with vegetable-based ink.
• All CommNet stations will be stocked with recycled paper.
• The fabric of the conference bag is made with 51% post-consumer recycled materials including water bottles and yogurt containers.
• The conference pen is manufactured with corn starch instead of petroleum and is 81% biodegradable.
• The conference badge lanyard is manufactured from 100% recycled soda and water bottles.
• Badge holders will be collected at the end of the event to be reused at future Microsoft Dynamics and Convergence events.
• The journal within the conference bag is made with 100% recycled chipboard cover, 100% post-consumer recycled writing paper, and printed with soy-based ink. The wire binding is made of 97% scrap metal with only 3% new steel.
• Evaluation prizes include t-shirts made with organic cotton and other solar-powered gadgets.
• The Conference Store will be stocking a variety of environmentally friendly merchandise.
• Air-conditioning/heating and lighting will be minimized during off-hours to minimize power consumption.
• The disposable plates and bowls used during certain meals are made of a biodegradable sugarcane by-product. Napkins, cups and other boxed containers are also made of biodegradable and recycled materials.
• Menus will incorporate a variety of locally-grown and organic ingredients. Left-over food will also be donated to Second Harvest, a local food bank.
• Convergence Sponsors & Exhibitors have been encouraged to help reduce waste by minimizing giveaways and collateral, using recycled materials where possible, and minimizing shipping and packaging needs.

Microsoft Introduces New “Search Engine Marketing Service” to Boost Dynamics CRM’s advertising Oomph

Microsoft is integrating a new “search engine marketing service” into Dynamics CRM that enables users to place online advertising and monitor results.

The service, which bears a resemblance to Google AdWords, was introduced as part of a keynote address at Convergence 2008 by Kirill Tatarinov, vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions, on Wednesday. He said after his speech that the new service is immediately available to users of CRM 4.0 and CRM Live, and is intended partly to leverage potential benefits from advertising on MSN, Microsoft’s search engine.

Tatarinov announced two other somewhat-less-glamorous CRM-based marketing programs — a service to sell excess user inventory on eBay and a merchant credit card service.

As part of his presentation, Tatarinov had Bruce Kasrel, a senior product manager, demonstrate the search-engine service to the several thousand Convergence attendees.

According to Kasrel, the service “talks with Microsoft adCenter, and adCenter is a platform for placing ads on sites like Live Search, MSN, and even Facebook. And so this service lets you create, edit, and manage your campaigns right within your Dynamics software.”
He then conducted a demonstration with CRM Live, beginning by selecting key word search terms for a hypothetical product, and pausing to adjust the campaign after initial results came in.

“We can see right here in our interface, we’re going to see what are we starting with, what’s our budget, what are we targeting for impressions and things like that. So now I’m going to go ahead and resume the campaign and we’re going to go ahead and edit that campaign and maybe even add some key words right here, right within the service.

“Well, actually, the software is very smart as well, and it can actually work with you through the process of choosing keywords,” and making suggestions for revisions as well. In addition, he said, “It can look at that Web site you created and look at that and pull the content from that and create keywords from that.”

In addition, “Because it’s a software-plus-services, it can actually go inside your CRM software, find the documents there, and use them to produce keywords.

The service also aids in the ad-creation process. “So once we have our keywords, the next step is to create the ad that would run with those keywords, and this walks us through that. So I’m going to go ahead and click on ‘manage ads’ here. And we already have a few ads saved up here, so I can go ahead and click on this one here and maybe edit that.”

The service also streams results back through CRM. “What’s great is I can see them in two contexts: The first context right here is really about what are my ads doing as a group, and over here, what are they doing against all the campaigns that I might be managing within my software and CRM.”

What about assessing advertising productivity? According to Kasrel, “You can actually see the relationship between your advertising and what leads are generated. So I’m going to go ahead and click — you can not only measure it, but you can continually refine it and see how it goes over time, because leads are tracked within the software.”

Continuing with his presentation, he noted, “We have a screen here, and I’m actually going to see which keywords are generating the most leads, and then down here, I can actually see which leads they are, which ads they clicked on, and this is all within the CRM software, so they’ll be tracking this and looking at this all over time. This is another great example of software-plus-services. Here’s our CRM software down here, and here’s our adCenter Web service up here.”

One additional feature he described “will optimize the bidding on your search engine based on this relationship. So it’ll be more aggressively buying and bidding on keywords that are generating leads. So we’ll actually be effective for you.”

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