Or is it in fact green?

Mar 15, 2007 16:05 GMT  ·  By

Well, the fact of the matter is that Microsoft's Project Green is not withered. But, at the same time, it's not green, not the original green anyway, just a different nuance. A different nuance, because Microsoft has revamped its original plans for Project Green. Initially, the Redmond Company had announced that, with its Enterprise Resource Planning solutions, it would undertake a similar strategy as with Office. Namely to bundle disparate applications in a unified package sharing a single code base.

"What we went out and said two years ago is that we would go out and converge the product and that was the priority No. 1 for Dynamics. We don't see that as a priority any more," said Mogens Munkholm Elsberg, general manager for Microsoft NAV and AX. "We think that over time we will add technology to the products that will be similar-like the SharePoint integration, like Web services, like the UI?It doesn't make them one code base, but it does make them closer to one another."

Since then, Microsoft has apparently abandoned the idea of a single code base for all its ERP applications. The Redmond Company realized along the way that the sales channels are essential to the success of the ERP applications. The downside of this is the fact that each application, sometimes coming from different sources, is also tied to a target base, and in the end, Microsoft needs to satisfy customers, first of all. This is why the idea of a single code base may be abandoned.

"What has changed is how we communicate with our partners and customers," said James Utzschneider, general manager of product marketing for Microsoft Dynamics. The customers had the last say when it came to discontinue products that they were familiar with.

"Will we get to a single code base? Maybe. It could be multiple, it could be one. But it could be multiple. What we're trying to do is say, 'What are the strategic things that allow us to add value to our customers?' And we're trying to focus in certain industries, with certain products?so one, two, three code bases, it doesn't matter. It's about driving value to the customers," revealed Dave Coulombe, chief of the Microsoft Dynamics GP applications development team.