14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft plans to make it easier for customers that leverage its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) line of products to stretch into the Cloud. Two new services are currently cooking in Redmond, both designed to be attached to Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions, the Sites Service and the Commerce Service. In addition, the software giant will expand the existing Payment Service. The new Cloud-based offerings available to ERP customers will enable them to seamlessly bundle online services with both on-premise and on-demand in order to build custom solutions best tailored to their needs.
While the new Dynamics ERP services from Microsoft do indeed take customers into the Cloud, it is also clear that the company is tailoring the offerings to companies that are not yet ready to let go of their on-premise solutions. However, the company is more than willing to cater to customers that want to bundle traditional deployments in concert with Cloud offerings.
“Our customers increasingly appreciate the option of moving certain applications and services into the cloud while maintaining an on-premise option for their ERP solution,” explained Crispin Read, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics ERP. “Providing this choice and flexibility is a competitive advantage for us and our partners around the world.”
According to Microsoft, the Sites Service can be better leveraged by customers that need to not only build but also administer websites within the Dynamics ERP. Sites ranging from marketing campaign homepages to customer feedback will be closely integrated with business intelligence capabilities, but also optimization models. Essentially the service is set up to deliver analytics to companies to enable marketing insights for their Dynamics ERP application.
With Commerce, companies looking to extend Dynamics ERP will be able to enjoy the benefits of multichannel commerce. Microsoft explained that Commerce allowed customers to centralize product listings and order from a variety of places in the same location. The extension planned for Payment is, in this regard, connected with the necessity to process payment transactions from a multitude of sources using solely Dynamics ERP.
“The new Microsoft Dynamics ERP Sites and Commerce Services are expected to be available in the first half of 2010, with the additional payment service providers available in the first quarter of 2010,” Microsoft noted.