Pender's Blog

Blog archive

Convergence: 'We Have Concluded Project Green'

Remember Microsoft's plan to converge its four ERP suites into one mega-product? It was still causing confusion at last year's Convergence.

Not anymore. Or not really, anyway. Why? "We concluded Project Green," said Mogens Elsberg, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics ERP, not leaving a lot of room for ambiguity.

And there's not much ambiguity anymore about how Dynamics works. Steve Ballmer mentioned it again this week: The four-suite strategy is alive and well on the ERP side and will continue to be. (Oh, sure the suites all have pretty much the same interfaces now, and, as far as we know, they're still on the way to having the same code base, but the mega-suite idea, at least as a branding and marketing concept, is dead.)

ePartners President Michael McCarthy said that partners, not Microsoft, were responsible for a lot of confusion to begin with: "You've got to do your homework before you go into an account. You're not pushing GP in a global manufacturer; that's just stupid. The sophistication of the VAR and the understanding of the applications in the market are absolutely critical."

However, Michael Merfeld, customer director, Microsoft Dynamics, for Avanade, has a simpler take on why the Project Green kafuffle is no longer a sales barrier for partners. Nothing has changed, he said, except Microsoft's attitude. "There's no new message. [Microsoft] just stopped talking about it. They shut up. That's all they needed to do," Merfeld said.

And with Microsoft's big mouth shut, at least on this issue, partners are finding Dynamics easier to sell, which is a good thing. Sometimes, silence is golden -- or, in this case, green.

Posted by Lee Pender on March 13, 2008


Featured

  • Microsoft Appoints Althoff as New CEO for Commercial Business

    Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella on Wednesday announced the promotion of Judson Althoff to CEO of the company's commercial business, presenting the move as a response to the dramatic industrywide shifts caused by AI.

  • Broadcom Revamps VMware Partner Program Again

    Broadcom recently announced a significant update regarding its VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program, coinciding with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a key component in Broadcom’s private cloud strategy.

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.