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Cloud Reportby Jeffrey Schwartz, Executive Editor
			
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	Avanade Posts Microsoft ERP to Cloud
    		Fresh off Microsoft's  announcement last week that the next version of its Dynamics AX enterprise  resource planning (ERP) suite will be available as a hosted cloud service, systems  integrator Avanade said it will do the same -- but customers don't have to wait.
Avanade, 80 percent of which is held by IT outsourcing firm  Accenture with the remaining stake held by Microsoft, launched Cloud ERP at the  annual Convergence conference that took place in Atlanta last week. Cloud ERP will work with the  forthcoming version, Dynamics AX 2012, as well as the current release.
"We are seeing demand from our current clients for a  cloud-based Software as a Service-type ERP provisioning around Dynamics,"  said Bernd Weidenmueller, VP of Dynamics AX at Avanade. 
The service is available to companies with at least 40  employees but can scale up to the largest of Fortune 500 companies, Weidenmueller  said. Avanade performs the customization of customers' applications and uses a  third-party hosting company to host the application, Weidenmueller explained. 
Genesis Casket Co., an Indianapolis-based startup  manufacturer, is Avanade's first reference customer. The company needed an ERP  solution and didn't want to develop or run it internally. "They were  looking for a provider that can provide an ERP system with the strength of  Dynamics AX but run in a Software as a Service delivery model which could scale  up with their user growth with pricing attached to that," Weidenmueller  said.
 
	Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on April 19, 2011