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