Convergence « A Software Insider's Point of View

Posts Tagged ‘Convergence’

Monday’s Musings: Four Elements for A #SharingEconomy Biz Model In #MatrixCommerce

Published on May 26, 2013 by R "Ray" Wang

Hard Times And Good Will Drive The Disownership Movement

From car sharing in the late 1990′s, to vacation rentals, to collaborative financing, the sharing economy has been inching it’s way into the forefront of the consumer’s minds. Since the late 2000′s, thought leaders such as Rachel Botsman, Lisa Gansky, Anne-Sophie Novel, have been chronicling the forces, underlying trends, and players behind the movement. During the past five years, several poster children have emerged including AirBnB, DogVacay, Fon, GetAround, LendingClub, Liquid (Spin Lister), Lyft, Neighborgoods, Poshmark, Relay Rides, SideCar, Task Rabbit, Zaarly, and ZipCar.

Also known as collaborative consumption, an April 2013 study by SunRunHomes, a solar leasing company, and Harris Interactive shows that more than half (52%) of a 2252 surveyed group of Americans, have rented, leased, or borrowed traditionally owned items in the last two years. These items include cars, white good appliances, vacation homes, heavy tools, house hold tools, solar panels, books/textbooks, and children’s apparel (see Figure 1). The survey reveals a uniform view that cuts across age groups and coastal biases. In fact, the top reasons people rent, lease, or borrow traditionally owned items were saving money (53%) and cutting down on maintenance and/or storage (39%).

Figure 1. Disownership Is Now The New Normal

Disownership Infographic from Sunrun

Source: SunRunHomes and Harris Interactive Study

Future Matrix Commerce Models Must Account For New Mega Trends Such As The Sharing Economy

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Research Report: Constellation’s Research Outlook For 2011

Published on January 4, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

Organizations Seek Measurable Results In Disruptive Tech, Next Gen Business, And Legacy Optimization Projects For 2011

Credits: Hugh MacLeod

Enterprise leaders seek pragmatic, creative, and disruptive solutions that achieve both profitability and market differentiation. Cutting through the hype and buzz of the latest consumer tech innovations and disruptive technologies, Constellation Research expects business value to reemerge as the common operating principle that resonates among leading marketing, technology, operations, human resource, and finance executives. As a result, Constellation expects organizations to face three main challenges: (see Figure 1.):

Navigating disruptive technologies. Innovative leaders must quickly assess which disruptive technologies show promise for their organizations. The link back to business strategy will drive what to adopt, when to adopt, why to adopt, and how to adopt. Expect leading organizations to reinvest in research budgets and internal processes that inform, disseminate, and prepare their organizations for an increasing pace in technology adoption.
Designing next generation business models. Disruptive technologies on their own will not provide the market leading advantages required for success. Leaders must identify where these technologies can create differentiation through new business models, grow new profit pools via new experiences, and deliver market efficiencies that save money and time. Organizations will also have to learn how to fail fast, and move on to the next set of emerging ideas.
Funding innovation through legacy optimization. Leaders can expect budgets to remain from flat to incremental growth in 2011. As a result, much of the disruptive technology and next generation business models must be funded through optimizing existing investments. Leaders not only must reduce the cost of existing investments, but also, leverage existing infrastructure to achieve the greatest amount of business value.

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Event Report: Reflections On Microsoft’s Convergence 2009

Published on March 21, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Over 7000 customers, partners, Microsoft staff, and paparazzi made the pilgrimage to New Orleans to hear the latest and greatest from the Microsoft Dynamics team. The great band, surface computing demo, and festivities in New Orleans wiped out most of the gloom and doom of the economic recession and negativity towards continued reckless US government spending. Attendees were upbeat, optimistic, and energetic. One explanation for this sense of “can-do” attitude among attendees can be based on how Microsoft has successfully transformed itself into a value and innovation alternative to the large ERP vendors moving into the small-medium enterprise/business (SME/SMB) space.* Customers such as National Air Cargo state a 25% increase in employee productivity, GFK talks about is 50% less time spent on financial reporting, and Champion posts 60% faster order processing times using Microsoft Dynamics products. Conversations with Rick Harkins and Robert Dills of the Cleveland Red Cross highlight the ease of use and rapid implementation time. Customers of Hitachi consulting expressed both Microsoft and Hitatchi’s commitment to getting the job done right and the close relationships with the Microsoft Dynamics product teams.

In fact, in more than a dozen customer conversations at this year’s event, these born again ERP evangelists exclaimed, this is the “kinder and gentler” ERP company. One other attendee professed, “I know, I know, its Microsoft but they aren’t the big bad wolf in the enterprise applications space”. Another demonstration of care for customer and corporate responsibility includes the generous volunteerism with Habitat For Humanity in bringing over 400 employees, attendees, and partners to rebuild homes in New Orleans as part of the pre-conference activities.

Users And Partners Express High Levels Of Satisfaction

In a quick two question survey of 71 ERP users at this year’s Microsoft Convergence event, respondents from all industries and Microsoft Dynamics ERP product lines praised Microsoft Dynamics for the following when asked ” What features or qualities do you find positive about Microsoft Dynamics ERP”

Office integration (n=66 or 92.9%)
Usability (n=64 or 90.1%)
Product quality (n=60 or 84.5%)
Implementation time (n=59 or 83.l%)
Total cost of ownership (n=57 or 80.2%)
ROI or overall value (n= 55 or 77.4%)
Extensibility (n=53 or 74.6%)
Easy to learn (n=52 or 73.2%)

And of course, a few found opportunities for improvement in Microsoft Dynamics for the following when asked the converse question, “What features or qualities do you find negative about Microsoft Dynamics ERP”:

HR/payroll capabilities (n=61 or 85.9%)
Finding the right Microsoft Partner (n=56 or 78.8%)
Upgrade path or ability to easily upgrade from older releases (n=51 or 71.8%)
Mobile options (n=45 or 63.3%)
Deployment options such as SaaS and Hosting (n=38 or 53.5%)

2009 Convergence Highlights Progress In Delivery Of The Promised Road Map

Key design elements across all product families include a people centric approach with a strong foundation on user experience research, the Microsoft Dynamics Customer Model (61 user profiles), and a Role Tailored Design. With the death of Project Green (the convergent product lines project), Microsoft moves forward from the lessons learned and upholds its promises across the 5 major product families:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM pushes forward to cover the large enterprise and small business. One can say that Dynamics CRM was the star of this year’s event from demos to product announcements. Over 16,000 customers, 800,000 users, from small to enterprise organizations in over 80 countries now use the product in over 25 languages. As the product progresses towards CRM ’5″, the CRM 4.0 March 2009 update includes accelerators for analytics, eService, Event Management, Enterprise Search, Business Productivity, Extended Sales Forecasting, CRM Notifications, and Sales Methodology Support. Other capabilities include Up-time SLA, Internet Lead Capture, Cloud Integration Services, and Quick Start Tools.
Launched in April 2008 for the US and Canadian markets, CRM Online continues to build closer alignment with Microsoft Online via integrated services, shared billing, and provisioning. Release 2 delivered in September 2008 adds Internet marketing and supports up to 2000 users per organization. Deployment options include on-premise, hosting via Microsoft’s data center, or subscription to CRM as as Service from Microsoft’s data center. Release 3 will focus on improved business analytics. As proof of its ongoing value, Microsoft announced a 75% savings on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for $9.99/user for 6 months if users signed up and activate by May 1st 2009
Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers key mid market, industry specific, and globalization requirements. Released in June 2008, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 represents the latest release built on top of two important .NET libraries: Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). Usability enhancements bring Enterprise 2.0 capabilities. Further, Dynamics AX represents logical organizational models through improved data structure modeling. Some examples include Multi-Sites that model advanced internal supply chains, trading partners which model stakeholders such as customers and suppliers, and Shared Services that model inter company relationships. Microsoft Dynamics AX continues an industry strategy focused on discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, wholesale/distribution, retail, and professional services. Public Sector will be revealed in Dynamics AX ’6′. Though Microsoft Dynamics does not provide multi-tenant SaaS options, the Software plus Services approach delivers new retail customer deployment options for services such as online payment processing and payment services that work on the Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) price list, (a.k.a. subscription pricing models).
The latest service pack, SP1, provides over 330 fixes, 5-DCR’s, and supports over 42 languages and language variants. New features include project time management, intelligent data management, Microsoft Dynamics Mobile, Lean Manufacturing, and the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard. Key enhancements in SP1 include electronic signatures, left right date support, time zone patching, and enterprise portal deployment. Technology support includes Microsoft Dynamics Mobile, Windows Essential Business Server 2008, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. In Q2, the product will be available in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Brazil will have availability in Q3.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 adopts key enabling technologies. Launched November 2008, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 moves from a two-tier to a three tier architecture. As part of the new release, the product adopts the role tailored client, new reporting capabilities, and more web services enablement. The product currently is in an ISV Beta Access Program with more than 70 ISV’s and 15 Technology Adoption Program (TAP) participants representing 7 countries and 8 verticals. Initial usability results cite 22% more success in performing tasks and 23 point higher satisfaction rate with the new product when compared to the NAV 5.0. Over time users can expect mobility updates and support for additional countries. For a more detailed perspective on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, check out a fellow industry star analyst of SMB ERP, PJ. Jakovljevic at Technology Evaluation Centers.
Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 expands access and reach. Major themes include usability and productivity, access to information, and communication and collaboration. GP 10 delivered UI improvements including Action Panes and Lists. Other enhancements included Excel and SRS reports, and work flow and search. GP 10 FP adds Rapid Install, Configuration, Migration; Excel Report Builder; Project and Field Service. New for 2009 will be SP4 which adds Microsoft CRM capabilities.
Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.0 extends collaboration and role-tailored productivity. Microsoft Dynamics SL offers a project based solution in the North American market. Key investments include SL 7 FP and SL SP 2 delivered in Q4 2008, improved project manager productivity, and performance enhancements. SL 7 FP enhances collaboration with access to project, customer, and vendor related documents. The system adds work spaces and document repositories when new projects are created or when vendors or customers are added. Project managers gain improvements with new flexible period time reporting and integration with Office Project 2007. Usability enhancements reduce the time to create service tasks and financial tasks.

Microsoft Dynamics Offers Stability And Business Assistance In Today’s Market

As one of the Big 4 (i.e. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP), Microsoft’s investments in its Microsoft Dynamics product line remains extensive and steadfast. As companies begin to worry about the financial viability of their software vendors, Microsoft continues to:

Invest in R&D and innovation. As other vendors begin to cut R&D in the face of global contraction, expect Microsoft to buck the trend and honor its commitments to deliver on its road map as promised. With more and more consumption of .NET components, Microsoft can take advantage of its technology stack to deliver future innovations in search, data management, content management, and other productivity tools. Key innovations such as XRM for property management, complaint management, citizen management, dealer management and contractor management also highlight the other advancements to come.
Prove value to the customer. Various programs to help deliver value were announced at Convergence including new financing options and the “Unleash Your Potential” program. With SME/SMB customers facing liquidity issues, Microsoft Financing delivered a 0% Financing Offer that ended March 20th, 2009 on top of its Business Ready Licensing simplification programs. The new Smart Pay offer allows customers to buy now and pay 6 months later with 24 or 36 month terms so long they take action by June 30, 2009. Unleash Your Potential provides customers with a best practice business solutions road map to accelerate design time and improve implementation outcomes.

The bottom line – Microsoft Dynamics should be considered in short lists

Whether it be usability, functionality, integration with other services, or global availability, Microsoft Dynamics family of enterprise applications continue to improve with each release. Large enterprises looking at costly upgrades of legacy ERP and CRM systems should consider the option of Microsoft Dynamics as an alternative in their divisions or subsidiaries. Small and mid market customers will immediately benefit from usability and integrating with Microsoft Outlook and should leave Microsoft Dynamics in their short lists.

Your POV

How was your Microsoft Convergence experience? How do you feel about your Microsoft Dynamics products. Post your comments here or send me a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com. Thanks and looking forward to your POV!

Other useful coverage links on Microsoft Convergence 2009

March 18, 2009, Technology Evaluation Centers – P.J. Jakovljevic “The (NA)Vision of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 – Part 2

March 11, 2009, IDG News – Chris Kanaracus “‘Dynamic’ Businesses Will Survive Recession”

March 10, 2009, Tech Target- Barney Beal “Microsoft commits to customers as it updates Dynamics CRM Online”

March 10, 2009, Beagle Research Group – Denis Pombriant “Microsoft Convergence Starts In NOLA”

March 8, 2009, IDG News – Chris Kanaracus “Dynamics users ready to network, solve problems”

*Other purpose built ERP options include Microsoft “Rainbow Stack” competitors Agresso, Epicor, Exact, Sage, and Syspro, SME vendors such as Lawson, IFS, Infor, and SaaS options such as NetSuite and Workday.

Vendor Event: Microsoft Convergence 2009

Published on January 7, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Title: Vendor Event: Microsoft Convergence 2009
Location: New Orleans Convention Center, New Orleans, LA
Link out: Click here
Description: Convergence is the premier Microsoft Dynamics event, bringing customers, partners, team members and industry experts together in an environment created for you to discuss solutions, address business needs and establish a true community that can be leveraged throughout the year.

In 2009, Convergence will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana March 10 – 13. This is your opportunity to participate in an exceptional program including a variety of speakers, detailed product demonstrations and hands-on learning sessions. You will learn how to enhance your Microsoft investment now and in the future, and gain a stronger sense of community through interacting with industry leaders, Microsoft team members, partners and other customers.

Convergence 2009 will help you:

* Build skills across all Microsoft platforms and equip yourself with the tools and knowledge you need to optimize your business solution.
* Interact with peers, partners, Microsoft team members and top industry experts in both structured and informal settings.
* Hear the vision and strategy of key Microsoft executive leaders and gain insight on the future of the company, product direction and investments so you can align your business and take advantage of the benefits.

This is your opportunity to participate in an exceptional program including a variety of tracks, speakers, detailed product demonstrations and hands-on learning sessions to better understand how you can further leverage your existing business solution to tighten supply chains, deepen customer relationships, empower your workforce and sustain profitability.

* Sessions: Convergence 2009 features more than 420 sessions covering Microsoft Dynamics and the latest Microsoft-based products.
* Hands-on experiences: Grab the opportunity to evaluate products from Microsoft and our most important industry partners.
* Community and Learning Center (CLC): Considered the hub of Convergence, this area is designed to be a one-stop shop for networking and learning outside of conference sessions – while only having to visit one room! We offer free technical support, research activities and opportunities to meet fellow users and product experts.
* Connections with the community: An event that brings 10,000 Microsoft Dynamics customers, partners, team members and industry experts together translates into an endless number of opportunities to make lasting connections within the Microsoft community.
Date: 2009-01-10

Trip Report: India December 2008 – Sentiments From Bangalore

Published on December 4, 2008 by R "Ray" Wang

New airport symbolic of Bengaluru’s on-going transformation.

Arrival into Bangalore was quite a treat with mild 75 degree (25C) weather, less humidity, and a spanking new airport built by Zurich Airport, Siemens and India’s renown Larsen & Toubro for a price tag of $625 million. The old airport was closer to downtown, but frankly not worthy of Bangalore’s world class info tech reputation. The trade off – the Bengaluru International Airport is located in Devanahalli, 35km North of Bangalore city center It’s further away, and takes about an hour to get there. Infrastructure is spotty from the newly built National Highway 7 (Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway) to MG road, there are some segments that seem like they are in perpetual construction. On the way back, you feel the effects of the new Indian airport – great check-in flows, auto bag screening, real jetways to the planes (no more transfer buses), high end boutiques, western style food courts, and real air conditioning!

Leading services providers move to deliver differentiated IP.

Conversations with the leading firms highlighted continued advancement in the value chain. These service providers have managed to rapidly transform themselves over the past 2 years. The goal of achieving a trusted advisor status among clients remains in sight. There were 4 key themes from my meetings with our vendor clients as well as customers visiting these Indian service providers:

New vendor focused centers of excellence show increased competency
Continued micro verticalization adds to industry credibility
Deeper specialization in industries, roles, geos, and market segments opens up new markets
Transition from selling to an IT user to earning a business leader’s trust reflects new buying patterns

As with conversations in Mumbai, there is a sense of slow-down, but this is relative to the growth rates of 50% Y-O-Y growth that some firms have enjoyed during the past 5 years. Hiring continues and ranges from replacement only to “moderate” growth of 20%

The bottom line -service providers making the transition to solution providers

System integrators now have the power to deliver their IP via the Cloud, PaaS, SaaS, and other mechanisms. The result – IP can be owned and distributed directly to customers. The more this happens, the more customers will have choice beyond the large vendors. If successful, innovation will thrive and customers will win as these solution centric ecosystems get built out.

Your POV.

What are you seeing in the India market? Is your services provider becoming more strategic? Feel free to share with me your thoughts. You can post here or send me a private email to rwang0@gmail.com.

Event Report: Microsoft Convergence 2008 – Microsoft Ends Project Green, Renews Enterprise Focus

Published on March 11, 2008 by R "Ray" Wang

New Management Shows Long Term Commitment to Business Solutions Group

Recent Microsoft Business Solutions departures have brought into question whether the Redmond , WA giant is serious about the business applications market. Estimates of year over year growth from 2006 to 2007 have fallen from double digits to the high single digits, and this has raised doubts about Microsoft’s commitment to this $1B + business. (See Josh Greenbaum’s latest) Yet, after a string of high level departures including Jeff Raikes, Doug Bergum, Satya Nadella, Tammi Reller, and James Utzschneider, it appears the new management team may be here for the long haul.

The good news – meetings in Orlando with partners, customers, and Steve Ballmer’s key note have helped mitigate many doubts while highlighting a renewed corporate wide commitment that goes beyond the appointment of inside veterans such as Kirill Tatarinov and Chris Caren, and a new business solutions head, Stephen Elop. The message from Convergence was loud and clear – Microsoft is committed to the enterprise apps space, SMB and the large enterprise.

Revised ERP Product Roadmap and Strategy Arises From the Ashes of Project Green
Project Green, Microsoft’s attempt to build a new ERP replacing all code lines, failed because partners strongly expressed as desire to keep building in their code bases, the initiative would hinder development of application breadth and depth, and Microsoft did not want to incur channel disruption across all product lines. On a technical level, existing products lacked the architectural foundations for convergence. With the death of Project Green, the Dynamics ERP team enters a new era. Early evidence shows increased collaboration among the system, platform, and tools teams; streamlined ERP product teams headed by Microsoft veteran Hal Howard; and a continued focus on long term product road maps crafted by Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mike Ehrenberg. What has become quite clear:

Lessons learned from Project Green demonstrated in current releases. Despite the death of a converged product, customers already benefit from a new role-based personas focus leading to industry leading user experience. Though each Microsoft Dynamics product will retain their existing programming languages, increased platform adoption of SQL Server and VS.NET technologies allow each product line to adopt SOA, process-centric, and model driven design in an evolutionary approach. Teams will increase sharing of design specs, though not code, within the product families.

Shared investment will drive evolutionary convergence. Today all product lines share one user experience design team which implements UI with shared controls from one set of code that fits to each product’s architecture. Over time users can expect more Dynamics Attached Services, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report design/execution, unified communication (UC) integration components, and common analyst designer for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).
SQL Server will play a critical role in future product direction. Cooperative development between the NAV/AX and SQL teams leads to new features optimized for SQL Server 2008 such as proprietary reporting to SQL Sever Reporting Services (SSRS). With Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, preliminary performance benchmarks show the best scale on SQL Server 2008, though the product will still support Oracle databases. In addition, BI will be delivered out of the box for Dynamics AX. Via SQL Attached Services (SQLAS)
Future roadmap will optimize on Microsoft VS.NET middleware. Existing ERP applications all now use SharePoint as the portal and will leverage the capabilities of unified communications (UC) over the next 2 releases. Microsoft Dynamics SL has already been rewritten in Visual Basic .NET. Microsoft Dynamics AX, Dynamics GP and Dynamics NAV incorporate Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). Microsoft Dynamics GP has supported Visual Studio developers with their Visual Studio Toolkit which exposes, Dynamics GP objects, classes, events and forms to the VS.Net developer. Recent releases of Microsoft Dynamics NAV now incorporate more VS.NET features at run time. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 as well as Dynamics GP already leverage web services from Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). Complex roadmap dependencies on underlying Microsoft platform and Office releases, however, impact the extent to which Microsoft can update its Dynamics products, potentially resulting in delays of future releases.
Software plus Services initiative signal potential “SaaS-like” solutions. Future road maps indicate a movement towards new deployment options that include hostability, attached services, and finished services. With the changes in the 2006 Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA), partners can deploy hosted solutions that will reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and improve deployment options. Attached services like payment services and fraud prevention technology for credit card payment processing from PayPal and Chase Paymentech Solutions will extend functionality with relevant business services and integrate with on-premise ERP applications. Finished services intend to deliver new functional or vertical solutions in the cloud hosted in Microsoft data centers.
Industry Builders Initiative replaced with two new programs with more rigorous certification. Microsoft confirmed that Industry Builder, an independent software vendor (ISV) and system integrator initiative designed to deliver core vertical expertise, would be replaced with two new solutions, Microsoft Dynamics Industry Solutions (MDIS) and Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD).[i] This decision reflects an internal decision to hold off vertical expansion until the horizontal platform has been significantly revamped to support a broader range of vertical requirements. MDIS requires deeper partner synchronization to product road map, code quality assurance, translation, localization, documentation, and testing processes. MDIS will offer industry solutions OEM’d by Microsoft, sold on the price list, and synchronized with the Dynamics product development organization. CfMD provides validation and marketing benefits to existing vertical ISV solutions. Solutions must be tested and provide 10 customer references to qualify.

[i] Industries include apparel and textiles, automotive, construction, consumer driven planning, CPG distributors, CPG manufacturers, field services, food and beverage distributors, food and beverage manufacturers, industrial distributors, industrial equipment manufacturing, manufacturing, oil and gas , energy financial management, process manufacturing, process industries, professional services, retail chain manager, and supply chain execution.

The bottom line
It appears that Microsoft has made a renewed commitment to the Dynamics product line. Future innovations will come from both the Microsoft Business Solutions division and the system, platform, tools, teams. End users can expect to stay within their product family and not to be forced down a path of artificial convergence. Despite the death of Project Green, customers will benefit from an evolutionary approach, albeit this will take much longer than originally expected.