ERP Software

Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint SaaS release

Microsoft has rolled out SaaS functionality for SharePoint and Exchange, as part of their Software plus service strategy for SMB companies with under 5,000 Microsoft seats.

General availability of both the Exchange and SharePoint hosted services is planned for the second half of 2008. The new online services will let end users access services like e-mail, calendaring, and Web conferencing at subscription prices. This will only be offered to companies who are already deploying the Microsoft products with an on premise licensing model.

Microsoft CRM 4 is now offering a multi tenancy model and through partners you can have Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions hosted.

Microsoft normally announces a new service at their annual Microsoft Convergence conference in the US which will be in Orlando from the 11^th to 14^th of march, maybe they will have a announcement that you can have their ERP software packages (Microsoft Dynamics AX,GP,Nav and SL) as SaaS delivery model direct from Microsoft.

Microsoft’s competition from online documents (Google docs, ZOHO), hosted CRM (Sales force) and hosted ERP (Netsuite, SAP business by design) will force them eventually to offer all their software packages as an on demand business model if the consumer/customer wants it.

What do you think Microsoft will announce at MS Convergence Orlando?

Microsoft to buy SAP again?

Here we go again financial traders are talking up SAP stock saying that Microsoft is keen to acquire SAP ,this is not the first time this rumour has come out back in 2004 there was talks but was decided that the two companies would struggle to integrate.

SAP has a market capitalization of $65 billion and the largest purchase Microsoft has done so far is $1.5 billion so quite a jump on purchase size ,add in that they would struggle to get the combined company past the competition authorities and the huge cultural differences between the two companies might make this rumour just talk.

What is interesting is that SAP keeps coming up as the tier one erp company that wants to be purchased will it be Microsoft or IBM?

Update : Henning Kagermann from  SAP  said he has had no discussions with Microsoft   about selling SAP.

BizTalk EDI Interview

Microsoft Biztalk Video interview with Tony Bernard discussing Biztalk for EDI and RFID. 

Link to Tony Bernard on BizTalk

Microsoft SaaS CRM

 

Microsoft has showcased  a glimpse of  Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM application

End users will be able to run the Microsoft SaaS software application from within Outlook or a browser window. and partners will be able to build vertical editions for nicheindustries, and customers will have the ability to perform their own customizations.

Microsoft is trying to copy Salesforce's business model with AppExchange allowing customers ,partners to create their own unique software

What is interesting is this Hybrid model with installed CRM software being able to work with Internet services ,hopefully Microsoft can move beyond integrating other Microsoft web services and be able to offer a interface for out the box integration with other SaaS Web 2.0 services.

Microsoft SAP Duet

Duet allows users to access data and processes from SAP's back-office applications through Microsoft's desktop Office software suite.

As part of their collaboration, Microsoft and SAP will regularly release additional integration capabilities, dubbed "business scenarios," with each release aimed at a specific function of a company's operations.

One of the several value packs planned for the next year will feature three business scenarios connecting Microsoft Office and mySAP Business Suite applications.

The business scenarios are:

Travel Management: which is designed to simplify travel planning and expense approval via Microsoft Outlook;

Sales Management:for accessing customer contact and sales-based analytics , easy scheduling of customer activities.

Demand Planning: simplify supply chain demand planning via Microsoft Excel.

SAP's 'Duet' with Microsoft also promises to tie NetWeaver BI and analytic data to the Microsoft Office desktop.

SAP Microsoft Duet

Tags: duet, sap, microsoft

Microsoft hosted ERP solutions news

Microsoft is going to work with its partners to offer their four ERP software packages as hosted packages some time late next year.

This is Microsoft’s response to Netsuite and Salesforce pushing the SaaS model allowing companies to move away from the heavy upfront costs to a monthly subscription business model.

This is not a true SaaS delivery package Microsoft has not gone down the multi- tenancy model and there is no competition or response to the appexchange mindset.

Microsoft hosted ERP news

Steve Balmer "I love this company"

Steve Balmer going nuts ,video quality is not the greatest but worth it to see his dance style.

Microsoft LOBI

Microsoft is opening Office to third parties through a new add on feature called Line of Business interoperability, or LOBi, for Share Point Server. With LOBi, Microsoft Office applications will be able to manage transactions with back office ERP systems.

Microsoft will be offering this integration with their Microsoft Dynamics range half way through next year ,what is interesting is ,there are third party vendors who have signed up to use Microsoft LOBI with their own ERP systems such as Epicor and Workday.

Microsoft LOBI

Microsoft ERP CRM offer

Microsoft is offering a free CRM server when bought with Axapta ,Great Plains ,Navision and Solomen.

Navision and Axapta have their own CRM package included but now you would be able to select MS CRM server free .They will be sold on a named user basis when you could be looking for concurrent users.

RFID Biztalk new release

Microsoft is releasing BizTalk Server 2006, which includes native support for the EDI and AS2 communication protocols, and a new set of services supporting RFID technology. This should be available in 2007

Microsoft has purchased adapters from iWay software so instead of having to purchase your specific EDI, RFID product from a third party ,Microsoft is offering one package allowing you to vent your feelings at one company when the software does not work out the box.

The RFID services will utilize a set of open APIs that Microsoft business partners, such as Unisys, can use to create an end-to-end solution for customers.

Pricing for BizTalk Server 2006 costs $30,000 per processor, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 will also support the new WinFX programming model that Microsoft is building into Windows Vista and the next release of Windows Server.

Link for beta tester’s connect.microsoft.com.